Chapter 17
17
Georgia had asked everyone to be at hers for noon so I turned up at ten with a large bouquet of flowers as well as the usual thanks for lunch bottle of wine.
‘What are these for?’ she asked as I followed her into the kitchen. ‘And why are you so early?’
‘Same answer for both questions – to apologise for ignoring your messages.’
‘So you were ignoring me. I knew it!’ She gave me a stern look. ‘You do realise your punishment will be to eat all your broccoli.’
‘No! Anything but that!’
‘I don’t get what it is with you and broccoli.’
‘It’s the texture. It’s like having a mouthful of tiny trees.’ I shuddered at the thought. ‘I’ll have a double portion of cauliflower. Just don’t make me eat the trees.’
She laughed. ‘Fifty-two years old and still a child.’
I stuck out my tongue.
‘And the only reason you’re offering to eat double cauliflower is because it’s cauliflower cheese so only part-vegetable.’
I grinned at her. ‘Guilty.’
She reached a vase down from the top of a cupboard and filled it with water then unwrapped the flowers and started snipping off the stem ends.
‘I know you don’t want to talk about him, but you know I’m going to ask anyway. How was it seeing him again?’
‘I don’t know. For a moment, I was transported back thirty years to the night of my twenty-third birthday.’
She put the scissors down and held my gaze, a smile playing on her lips. ‘The night the two of you met.’
‘Yes.’
‘The night you fell in love.’
I raised my eyebrows at her, patently aware of where this was heading.
‘The night you knew you’d met the person you’d be with forever and ever till death do you part.’ She winced, presumably registering the inappropriateness of her words. It was, after all, death that had parted us – just not each other’s.
‘Sorry. That was careless of me.’
‘It’s okay.’
I gave her a weak smile and she sighed as she picked up the scissors once more and continued snipping. I could sense her brain working overtime connecting the dots in the conversation we’d just had.
‘I remember that night well. Your expression every time you looked over at him, it was as though you were…’ She frowned, evidently searching for the right word. ‘Enchanted. That’s it! You were enchanted by him.’
‘I was.’
‘So, if on Thursday you found yourself transported back to the night you met, does that mean you still have feelings for him?’
Georgia was too clever for her own good. I shrugged. ‘I don’t know what I feel anymore. About him. About anything.’
She raised her hand in the air. ‘Willing volunteer to help you work through it all. Mr Pino and Mr Grigio are offering their assistance too.’
I couldn’t help laughing. Georgia always had known how to lift me.
‘We’ll see,’ I said. ‘Can I start on the veg for you? Anything except the tiny trees.’
She directed me to a bag of potatoes and I started peeling while she finished arranging the flowers.
‘I did a thing yesterday,’ I said after I’d peeled a few spuds. ‘I decided to visit The Bothy but I bottled it when I got close.’
Georgia looked puzzled. ‘You do realise Flynn doesn’t live there anymore?’
‘I wasn’t looking for Flynn. I’d already looked it up online. I’d never have gone if I thought he was still there. Do you know why he didn’t sell up straightaway? Actually, no, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.’
‘I couldn’t tell you even if you wanted me to. He might have spoken to Mark about it but, like I told you, I haven’t spent any time with him. But I do know where he lives now. Do you want to know that?’
I shook my head vigorously. ‘Definitely not.’
‘So if you weren’t going to The Bothy to see Flynn, what was the reason?’
‘I thought it might help if I went back there.’
‘Help what?’ She narrowed her eyes at me and, as I saw the realisation hit, she put her peeler down and gathered me into her arms. ‘You’re not okay, are you?’
I gratefully sank into her embrace. ‘Not really.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ she asked when I released her.
I ran my hands into my hair and sighed heavily. ‘Remember what you said to me outside The White Willow at Mum’s eightieth? That I’d run away to Newcastle and buried my head in the sand. I later admitted that I had run away but was adamant that you were wrong about the other part. You weren’t.’
I let my hands drop with another heavy sigh. ‘I haven’t come to terms with any of it. Haven’t moved on at all. If anything, I think I might have regressed.’
‘Oh, Mel.’
‘I thought that visiting The Bothy might?—’
‘Panic over!’ Mark called from the hall, stopping me mid-flow. ‘I have gravy granules.’
‘We’ll talk later,’ Georgia whispered, giving my arm a gentle squeeze.
‘My hero,’ she called to Mark. ‘Mel’s here.’
‘Yeah, spotted her car.’ He joined us in the kitchen, said hello to me, and handed a paper shopping bag over to Georgia before asking what his next task would be.
The mood had been heavy with my confession but Mark’s return, with the addition of some music, lifted the atmosphere considerably. As the three of us finished preparing the meal together, I had flashbacks to so many happy times preparing food in this kitchen, in the kitchen in The Bothy and at Derwent Rise. Our family had always worked as a team to prepare meals, typically accompanied by laughter, music and even dance, and I’d pushed that away for years. What had I been thinking? The point was that I hadn’t been. I’d needed to get out.
And now I wanted to be back in.
Everyone arrived within two minutes of each other, punctuality being another family thing. It was loud and chaotic with so many people appearing at once, calling out greetings, dishing out hugs and, before long, we were sitting down to eat.
Mum, Dad, Keira and Johnnie kept us entertained across the meal as they told us all about their holiday. It seemed that Mum had agreed to hire a mobility scooter for the duration of their break.
‘You were adamant you’d never go on a scooter,’ Georgia declared. ‘Said they were for old people who can’t walk.’
‘Yes, well, I accepted that perhaps I do fall into that category now and I could either embrace it or miss out on all the lovely trips Keira had planned.’
‘It did take her a while to get used to it,’ Dad said, smiling, which prompted several stories of crashing into lampposts, bins and close encounters with pedestrians once she felt confident enough to travel at speed. I could imagine how hard it must have been for someone like Mum to admit that she needed a scooter as it meant accepting that the ability to walk without pain – something that, like most of us, she’d previously taken for granted – had gone. It undoubtedly hurt more as she’d always been so fit. Together, my parents had bagged all the Wainwrights – the 214 peaks in the Lake District National Park which the fell walker, author and illustrator Alfred Wainwright included in his pictorial guides – with their favourite fells summitted several times. They’d also completed the seventy-three miles of the Cumbria Way as well as the Coast to Coast walk which was nearly three times the distance at 197 miles. To go from that to barely being able to walk at all couldn’t be easy so it was no wonder she’d rebelled against a mobility scooter although, of course, I’d missed all of that because I hadn’t been here.
‘We’ve got gifts for everyone,’ Mum announced after we’d passed round coffees.
I had wondered what was in the large gift bags Dad had parked in the corner of the room. Regan unwrapped a beautifully intricate driftwood candle holder and a pair of church candles which he and Clarke said would be perfect in their lounge. The gift for Mark and Georgia was even bigger – a large glass hurricane candle holder nestled on a driftwood base.
‘Aw, you shouldn’t have,’ Georgia said, admiring it. ‘It’s gorgeous. I know where that’s going.’
‘We thought it would fit the space perfectly,’ Mum said.
I felt all eyes on me as I was handed a small paper bag. I reached inside and removed a box of shortbread, hoping my face didn’t convey my disappointment. It wasn’t the gift itself – I loved shortbread – but what I felt it symbolised. It was an afterthought gift or a token gesture for someone they didn’t know and it hurt as much as not getting name-checked in Mum’s birthday speech.
‘This won’t last me long,’ I said, smiling at them.
‘I know it’s not a big box but—’ Mum started and I clapped my hand to my mouth, grimacing.
‘I didn’t mean it won’t last me long because there isn’t much of it. I meant because I love shortbread and can eat a whole box in one sitting. It’s great. Thank you very much.’
An awkward silence settled round the table, thankfully broken by Astrid banging her sippy cup on her tray in a clear demand to be released from her highchair. Everyone moved into the lounge and, after about an hour, Keira announced that it was time to head home. Regan, Clarke, Mum and Dad said they’d make tracks too, so there was a mass exodus.
Despite still feeling wounded by what I felt was a clear message in the holiday gifts, I was determined to make an effort.
‘Can I visit you one day next week?’ I asked, following my parents out to the car.
They stopped, both frowning at me.
‘What for?’ Dad asked.
‘Nothing specific. Just a catch-up now that I’ve moved back here.’
They exchanged looks and I didn’t miss Mum widening her eyes at Dad in a way which suggested it was a no and it was up to him to convey that to me.
‘Can we come back to you on that?’ Dad asked, sounding flustered. ‘We’re only just back from holiday and there’s lots to do. We don’t know what our plans are.’
‘Yeah, that’s fine.’ It was hard not to sound hurt. ‘Just give me a call or text me when you’re free. I can be really flexible with my time – morning, afternoon or evening.’
‘We’ll give it some thought later. Come on, June, let’s get you in the car where it’s warm. Sorry, Mel, but we can’t squeeze past you.’
Biting back a sigh, I moved out of their way and retreated into the kitchen, feeling I needed to be somewhere where people weren’t. Would it have killed them to have said an enthusiastic yes and suggested firming up the date later? Talk about making me feel unwanted!
While Georgia and Mark stayed outside, presumably waving everyone off, I wiped the placemats and coasters and cleared glasses from the table.
‘You superstar, Mel,’ Georgia exclaimed when she joined me. ‘I’m loving having a cleaning pixie.’
‘It was no bother. I like to make myself useful. Where’s Mark?’
‘He forgot to get fuel while he was out earlier so he’s gone to the petrol station.’ She straightened up a couple of the chairs then leaned on the back of one of them, her head cocked onto one side.
‘I know how it looks,’ she said, her voice gentle. ‘They could have positioned things better.’
I didn’t need to ask her what she was referring to. ‘You don’t have to explain anything.’
‘I do. I couldn’t say anything in front of the kids, but there’s a reason why they gave me the gift they did. Mum and Dad came over on New Year’s Eve. Mum was in a lot of pain but she’d lost her patience with Dad for telling her to sit down and rest all the time so she’d claimed she was fine when she wasn’t. The pain made her even more unsteady on her feet. I had a lovely hurricane candle on the window ledge over there.’ She pointed to the side window in the dining area. ‘Mum got up to get a glass of water, Dad went to help her and she snapped at him, saying she was quite capable of managing the short distance to the sink. Except she wasn’t and she fell. She grabbed at the window ledge to save herself and managed to knock the candle to the floor and it smashed to smithereens.’
I winced. ‘Was she okay?’
‘Grabbing the ledge kept her upright but she badly bruised her leg and arm. She kept saying she’d replace the candle and I said there was no need. I was more concerned about her than an ornament. They obviously spotted that one on holiday and decided it was the ideal replacement.’
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘It is. As for Regan and Clarke, that was a moving-in gift.’
‘But they moved in together eighteen months ago.’
‘And Mum and Dad never got them a gift. They said they wanted to get something special and hadn’t seen anything suitable until now. We assumed they’d forgotten and would never have said anything but they’d obviously still been looking. I overheard them apologising to the boys for it being so late.’
‘I am happy with my shortbread,’ I said, feeling bad now that I knew the story behind the other gifts, ‘but I couldn’t help feeling like a point was being made.’
‘I get it, but I think a lot of that’s in your head. You think you’ve damaged your relationship with Mum and Dad but I say it’s only a little bit bruised.’
‘I suppose.’
‘Another thing to bear in mind is that you don’t actually have a home at the moment so gifts like ours would be a little redundant for you.’
I shook my head at her. ‘Urgh, I hate it that you’re so reasonable. It’s a fair point and, even if I did have a home, I guess they don’t know what my taste is anymore, although I am trying to be part of their lives again. Not that it got me anywhere.’
Georgia’s brows knitted. ‘Yeah, that was strange. Maybe Mum’s in more pain than she’s letting on again and Dad was just focused on getting her home.’
‘I hope you’re right – not about Mum being in pain, of course, but about Dad being distracted – because that lack of enthusiasm about seeing me hurt way more than any token gift ever could.’
‘This past year or so hasn’t been easy for either of them with Mum’s health and I think their patience has been stretched to the limit. Baby steps. You’ll get there.’
‘I hope so.’
‘Going back to that thing you told me you nearly did yesterday,’ she said, setting the dishwasher away. ‘I think visiting The Bothy would be a good step in helping you dig your head out of the sand, but I don’t think you should do it alone. When you’re ready, we’ll do it together. And whatever else you need to do to move forward, I hope you know that I’ll be right by your side every step of the way. We’ll get through this together.’
I hugged her, touched by her kindness. ‘I’d really appreciate that because I haven’t had much success tackling it on my own.’
‘Cup of tea before you head off?’ she asked.
‘That’d be great.’
‘You’ve got this. Baby steps with the parents and baby steps for this. We could call it Operation Ostrich.’
I rolled my eyes at her. ‘I’m not convinced it needs a name.’
‘What about a hashtag? Ooh! Hashtag be less ostrich.’
‘Stop! Please don’t ever say that again.’
‘But it’s genius.’
‘It’s certainly something.’
Watching Georgia preparing the drinks, I thanked my lucky stars that I’d been blessed with such a wonderful sister. She was such a calming influence, always able to step back and look at an issue from several perspectives. Weirdly, that was second nature to me when it came to my job but it somehow didn’t translate into my personal life. If only it did, I might never have left. My relationship with my parents wouldn’t be bruised. I’d still be with Flynn.
If only.