Chapter 7
7
Across the rest of the weekend and the start of the following week, all I could think about was moving home. The idea still scared me but I felt lighter having made the decision. Well, almost made it. There was one more thing I wanted to do – have a proper walk around Willowdale during daylight hours and see what my gut told me then. It was Georgia’s birthday on Thursday and we were going out for the evening. Although she’d be at work during the day, she’d already said I was welcome to drive over earlier and work from her house if that was more convenient for me. It would give me the perfect opportunity to take that walk without telling anyone.
I drove over to Willowdale after lunch and parked on the road between the community centre and The Hardy Herdwick – the village pub and our destination for Georgia’s birthday night out. It was cool but thankfully not freezing like it had been last week. The sun was low in the pale blue cloud-free sky and dazzling me so I needed my sunglasses on. My eyes had always been really sensitive to the sun and Georgia used to tease me for being a poser wearing shades in winter but I could barely keep my eyes open without them.
I followed the path to the village centre where it curved round to the right with Lakeside Inn on one side and the giant willow tree on the other. As I passed Derwent Rise, I spotted Dad’s car on the drive and wondered if I should drop in to say hello. They were taking Georgia out for a birthday meal on Saturday so wouldn’t be joining us at the pub tonight. I probably should make an effort to see them but, if I popped in, I’d do it on the way back.
My walk continued past the marina and out of the village. Derwent Water was on my left but I wouldn’t be able to see it again until some way past Willowdale Hall. Trees of various species, some deciduous and others evergreen, flanked me on either side of the road. Shafts of gentle light filtered between the branches and a light wind teased the ends of my hair.
With every step, I felt lighter, more relaxed. How many times must I have walked along here over the years? Whether I was walking to the lakeside, hiking up Cat Bells or doing a full circuit of Derwent Water, there was one stop I always made – Willowdale Hall. The manor house itself was set so far back from the gates that it couldn’t be seen from the road. As a young girl, I’d often pressed my head against the railings, willing the trees to temporarily turn invisible so I could see the beautiful building beyond them.
Reaching Willowdale Hall, I couldn’t resist pressing my face against the gates once more. The wrought iron felt icy cold against my cheeks, making me gasp, so I didn’t stay there for long. I continued further along the track past the estate grounds. Derwent Water came into view again and I followed a track down to one of several wooden jetties around the lake.
There was nobody on the jetty or the pebble beach beside it so I picked up a stone and attempted to skim it, only managing a pathetic two bounces. Flynn and Noah had been the experts, always winding each other up about who was the best. I smiled as I recalled the pair of them on this very beach. The water had been really calm and Noah – age twelve or thirteen at the time – had managed an impressive twelve bounces. When it was Flynn’s turn, Noah was determined not to be beaten and had tried every trick he could think of to distract his dad – fake-sneezing loudly, tickling his ears with a twig he’d found on the ground and even hurling a dead slug at him. I’d completely forgotten about that until now.
I skimmed another stone – three bounces this time – then hugged my arms across my chest. I’d fled to escape the bad memories but doing so had taken me away from the happy memories like this. This was how I wanted to remember my son – fun-loving, mischievous and loving life. This was where I needed to be.
* * *
When I walked back through Willowdale, there was no car on the drive at Derwent Rise. Dad never put the car in the garage so its absence meant nobody was home. Probably just as well because it felt right for Georgia to be the first person I told about my decision to return.
I managed ninety minutes of work at Georgia’s before she arrived back from work.
‘Happy birthday!’ I cried, jumping up to give her a hug.
She opened up her gift – a handbag she’d fallen in love with on a visit to Newcastle last year but which she’d refused to treat herself to, saying it was too expensive. She hugged it to her chest, beaming at me.
‘I can’t believe you went back for it! Thank you so much.’
‘You loved it so I was always going to get you it. So, how was the library?’
‘Busy. We’ve started running Story Craft on a Thursday afternoon where we read babies and toddlers a picture book and they create some of the characters or scenes from the story using painted hands and feet.’
‘Sounds messy.’
‘It is, but it’s fun and the stories are always so heartwarming. I love children’s books.’
‘You love all books.’
Our parents had been voracious readers so books had always been a big thing in our family. While Georgia took after Mum in devouring fiction, I followed in Dad’s footsteps with a love of non-fiction, especially anything historical. From being a little girl, Georgia had wanted to work in a library. We’d visited the one in Keswick every Saturday where she took forever to select her books. Some of the librarians let her stamp the return date on the books she borrowed and she still maintained that the best Christmas present she’d ever been given was a set of library cards and a stamp. In her teens, she’d developed a particular interest in rare and first editions and now, alongside her library role, she was the book expert at Darrowby’s.
‘So, are you excited about the quiz tonight?’ Georgia asked, tucking her dark hair behind her ears as she peeked into the slow cooker which had been teasing me with the delicious aroma of honey and garlic chicken.
‘Erm…’
She laughed. ‘Daft question for someone who hates quizzes.’
‘It’s not that I hate them. I’m just no good at them. I know a considerable amount about a few niche subjects which don’t typically come up on quizzes.’
‘You’ve got some music and film knowledge.’
‘ Some being the operative word. Mid-eighties to early-noughties, if that. But I promise to try my best and not let you down.’
‘You could never let me down,’ she said, her expression serious, and then she laughed once more. ‘That’s Mark’s job. That man has an uncanny ability to present wrong answers with such conviction that nobody likes to challenge him. Right, I’m off upstairs to get showered before he gets home.’
She left the kitchen and I returned to my laptop to sneak in another thirty minutes of work before I got changed.
* * *
Quiz night was clearly popular as The Hardy Herdwick was packed.
‘How long is it since you’ve been in here?’ Georgia asked as we grabbed a table with Keira while Mark and Johnnie went to the bar to get the drinks in.
‘A decade? Maybe more?’ It had been several years before Noah died. Flynn and I used to love coming here. It was the place where we met so it had always been special to us, but we both got so busy with work that we’d stopped finding the time. ‘It hasn’t changed much.’
In some ways, that felt reassuring. The walls were painted a different colour but everything else was so familiar from the dark wood furniture to the pictures of Herdwick sheep all over the walls to the soft toy sheep beside the optics. There was a real fire burning, taking me back to how much Flynn and I had especially loved coming here on a winter’s evening to relax with a drink in front of the crackling fire. We’d been so happy back then. If Noah hadn’t died, we likely still would be.
Regan and Clarke joined us just after Mark and Johnnie returned with the drinks, wishing Georgia a happy birthday and giving her hugs. Mark returned to the bar for their drinks and then we all toasted to Georgia’s fifty-fifth birthday.
‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling round the group. ‘I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my birthday or better people to spend it with. But you know what will make it the best birthday ever? If we actually win for once.’
‘You haven’t won before?’ I asked, surprised.
‘Second’s the best we’ve come,’ she said. ‘We’re usually somewhere in the middle.’
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask why they kept coming if they never won, but I reminded myself that my sister had never been competitive. She didn’t mind being at the bottom as long as she felt she’d done her best and I had to applaud her for that. It was a much more relaxed way to approach life instead of wanting to be the best at everything like I always did. When you lived your life the way I did, failures were so much more catastrophic and I’d had plenty of those.
A young woman approached the table clutching several sheets of paper and a pot of pens. ‘Are you quizzing tonight?’ she asked.
Following an enthusiastic chorus of Yes, Connie , she placed an answer sheet and a pen on the table.
‘Please forgive the picture round. Arnie made one too many Christmas ones and decided he might as well use it tonight.’
I smiled at the quiz name which Regan added to the top of the page – Tequila Mockingbird. Nobody needed to explain the name choice to me. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was my sister’s all-time favourite book and I loved how they’d blended that with a drinks reference.
Regan removed a staple from the corner of the answer sheet and placed a second page down on the table with a declaration of, ‘Seasonally inappropriate picture round.’
I stared at the small photographs of scenes from Christmas films. I recognised a few obvious ones from Elf , It’s a Wonderful Life and Love Actually but nothing else looked familiar. Although…
‘That’s Die Hard ,’ I exclaimed. ‘That’s not a Christmas film.’
Regan and Clarke both stared at me, their expressions incredulous.
‘Take that back!’ Clarke said, clapping his hand to his chest in mock indignation.
‘Why? It’s an action film.’
‘Set on Christmas Eve at a Christmas party,’ Regan stated, shaking his head.
‘You’ve started something now,’ Georgia warned and, sure enough, Regan and Clarke presented an argument as to why Die Hard was not only a Christmas film but the best Christmas film ever. I wasn’t convinced by the latter, although I hadn’t watched enough Christmas films to offer a winner myself, but I had to concede that it did have Christmas all over it and wasn’t sure why I hadn’t thought about that before.
‘I can’t believe you haven’t heard the debate about it,’ Keira said. ‘It’s been all over the socials for years. There are stacks of reels about it on TikTok.’
I shrugged apologetically. ‘I don’t really do the socials and I definitely don’t do TikTok.’
‘Speaking of which, I loved your post on TikTok earlier,’ Keira told her brother and Clarke. ‘And how many followers? I’m in awe.’
I was the one in awe as I listened to them discussing the enormous social media presence Regan and Clarke had built up for both Darrowby’s and their textiles business. They showed me some of their recent posts which were funny and imaginative. I’d missed out on so much by not being more present in their lives, but that was going to change.
A buzz from a microphone interrupted us, followed by a man’s deep voice announcing, ‘Five-minute warning, quizzers, five-minute warning.’
‘That’s Arnie,’ Georgia told me. ‘He’s the landlord.’
I vaguely recalled her telling me that the pub had changed hands but I couldn’t remember how long ago that had been. The past seven years had blurred into each other.
The quiz got underway and, sure enough, my niche knowledge of historical buildings was no help whatsoever. I knew a couple of easy general knowledge questions and one of the music ones but the others got the answers quicker than me so I sat back, enjoying my drink and soaking in the atmosphere.
It was lovely observing the banter between Georgia, Mark and their kids but soon my mind drifted. If things had been different, would Flynn, Noah and I have joined Georgia and her family for weekly quiz nights? Maybe we’d have made our own team and there’d have been some family rivalry – Waters family versus the Crofts. Noah might have had a girlfriend who joined us. He might still have been with Jessie – perhaps engaged or even married. I glanced across at Keira on the other side of the table – older than Noah by only seventeen months – and felt a tidal wave of grief threatening to pull me under as I noticed her hands resting on her baby bump. Noah and Jessie could have had children by now. My grandchildren. Throat burning, tears blurring my vision, I had to get out but without alerting Georgia that something was wrong. I’d been to the ladies’ less than ten minutes ago and had made a trip to the bar on my return so the only thing I could think of was to fake a coughing fit. With one hand over my mouth, I tapped my chest, rolled my eyes at Georgia and pointed out the window. She nodded, indicating her understanding, and I dashed outside.
The temperature had plummeted from earlier and the cold air stabbed at me, taking my breath away, freezing my nose, cheeks and fingers. I wished I’d grabbed my coat but it had never entered my head in my haste to escape. I paced up and down at the side of the pub, clenching and unclenching my fists, a scream welling up inside me. I often thought about Noah in the present day – how old he’d be and what he might be doing with his life – but none of those thoughts had been so strong, so vivid as the vision I’d had just now. I’d clearly pictured him sitting beside Jessie, hands entwined, happy together – the future he should have had.
I slumped against the wall, swiping away a couple of escapee tears as I tried to pull myself together. I’d barely shed any tears for years and this wasn’t the time to release the floodgates. Tonight was my sister’s birthday and she deserved to enjoy it without any drama from me. But I wasn’t feeling strong enough to go inside yet. Just a couple more minutes.