Chapter 5 #3
I go to make an excuse, but I stop before the words come out. There’s something in his bright blue eyes that makes me feel like he can see right through me, and I don’t want to lie to him. Well, I can’t exactly tell him the truth, but I don’t want to lie even more to him.
‘So, you’re here on holiday?’ he asks when I don’t dispute his comment.
I clearly do need to get better acquainted with this van if I’m going to continue pretending it’s mine.
Am I going to keep pretending it’s mine?
Or am I going to wake up in the morning, realise I’ve taken leave of my senses and drive back to London, preferably without injuring anyone else on the way?
That instinctive feeling of not wanting to lie to him kicks in again.
‘I’m not sure. Something happened this morning…
’ I hesitate because I might not want to lie to him, but getting into Jared and Vickie is a lot to dump on a complete stranger.
‘A business opportunity fell through and for the first time in years, I don’t have a job to go to, so rather than looking to the future, I decided to revisit the past. I used to come here all the time when I was young. ’
‘Me too. My grandparents lived quite near so I used to stay with them during school holidays. Londoner?’
‘Close. Sevenoaks in Kent. You?’
‘I’m originally from a different part of Yorkshire. Harrogate, about sixty miles south, but I’ve been living in London for decades now. Never quite lost my accent though.’
Until now, I’ve been too panicked to really notice his accent, but now he mentions it, he has got a lovely warm and homely sounding accent, the kind that makes you feel safe and comfortable with every word. ‘Are you on holiday too?’
‘No. I… um…’ He seems momentarily stumped by the question and it takes him a moment to come up with an answer, and then he inclines his head towards the hill outside, with the stone steps that lead up to the Kingfisher Arms. ‘I’m working on the old pub up there.
It’s being turned into a private residence.
The guy who bought it has hired me to do the work. ’
‘Oh, wait, so it’s not a pub any more?’ I ask, feeling the same jolt of sadness I felt when I saw the remains of the cottage.
‘That place was magical when I was little. My grandpa always said that fairies and pixies held meetings in the garden, and if you sat very quietly, you might get to see them.’
‘Hah. Mine used to tell me the same thing, except I think it was just a sneaky way of getting kids to be quiet and not interrupt the adults for a while.’
Things change, of course they do, but this place felt like one of the things that wouldn’t.
The ivy climbing those grey stone walls and the arch windows that made it look like something from a fairytale.
‘Part of me had imagined that Mrs Patchett and her husband still ran the place, that the same families still came back every summer, that no one ever aged or moved on. It seemed like the kind of place that would always be exactly as it was.’
‘I felt the same, the first time I came back here as an adult.’ He meets my eyes and I feel that sense of understanding between us, like he really gets it.
He looks away again. ‘Mrs Patchett continued running it after her husband died, but it got too much for her. It’s been empty for years now, until it was sold to a private buyer – my boss. ’
‘It wouldn’t happen to be Kingfisher House now, would it?’ I say as I realise that explains the sign I drove past in the village, and his suggestion that I’d been hired by a local to take him out.
He nods as he takes another sip of tea, and I’m glad to see his hands look a bit steadier than they were. ‘You must have spotted the gigantic, impossible-to-miss banner that can be seen from space…’
I laugh at how upbeat his voice sounds, like angry locals are just another occupational hazard.
‘I’m just doing the work, but the owner isn’t here and I am, and people love shooting the messenger.
I did take their banners down a couple of times, but they just come back with bigger ones, so I gave up.
Let them have their fun. It’s too late to do anything about it now.
’ I’m intrigued by the hint of regret in his voice and the way he’s choosing words carefully, because he makes it sound like there’s something more to this.
‘If you’re working up there’ – I point in the direction of the pub up the hill – ‘why are you camping down here?’
He shrugs. ‘I’m staying in the empty building while I renovate it, but…
I don’t know, I like being outdoors. When the weather’s nice, there’s nothing better than sleeping under the stars.
Appreciating nature. Listening to the river burbling past, hearing hedgehogs snuffling around, the gentle breeze, the fresh air.
It soothes something inside me. Usually.
On the nights I’m not impaled by my own camping equipment, it can be quite pleasant. ’
His grin lets me know he’s joking, but I can’t shake the feeling of guilt. ‘I’ll buy you a new tent.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly, I wouldn’t hear of it. That wasn’t a tent, it was just tarpaulin strung up on a couple of poles. Don’t give it another thought, honestly. You’ve done more than enough.’
I look at this strange, optimistic man with his cartoon pyjamas and his inexplicable good humour in the face of being run over by a stolen campervan. ‘Why are you being so laidback? I’ve just driven into you, destroyed your tent and caused you a horrible injury. Most people would be raging.’
He shifts slightly on the bench as he considers it, wincing as his leg protests.
‘Well, let’s see. I’m alive. I’ve got a cup of tea.
You’ve patched me up and been very kind, and you’re not local, so this is my first conversation in weeks with someone who isn’t plotting to rip out my intestines and feed them to the ducks. Overall, I’ve had worse nights.’
His mention of feeding the ducks makes something twitch inside me, like a sign from the great beyond or something, and I can’t help the feeling you get when you meet someone and know they’re a good person.
Even if there is something unsettling about his cheerfulness, like he’s genuinely enjoying this bizarre situation and now the panic is starting to abate, I’m genuinely enjoying it too.
Eventually, he sighs and shifts to put his empty cup on the table. ‘I should let you get some rest. You’ve had a long day by the sounds of things.’
‘Long?’ It’s such an understatement that it makes me laugh in a slightly unhinged way. This morning feels like it was months ago and I’ve surely been driving for at least three weeks. Long is the understatement of all understatements.
‘London to Yorkshire, that’s quite a drive, especially if you’re not used to driving a van…
’ He sounds kind, even though he can clearly see right through my front.
If the inability to park without running someone over didn’t give it away, then the frantic hunt for the first aid kit and the mugs definitely has, and the binbags do not look like a pre-planned packing job.
‘It’s not that that I’m not used to driving it, I just needed… to get away,’ I say eventually. ‘This is the only place I could think of that felt like home. Sometimes you just need to go somewhere that remembers who you used to be.’
An understanding flickers across his face and comes out in a gentle smile, and I know this is a man who gets it. ‘Who did you used to be?’
‘Happy,’ I say, surprising myself with my acceptance of what I’ve realised throughout today. I haven’t been happy for a very long time. ‘I used to be happy.’
‘Then I hope you find your way back to that, even if it takes a few detours along the way. And you’ve probably come to the right place. I think half the people up here are running away from something. The other half are just lost.’
My chuckle is both relieved and intrigued. ‘Which are you?’
He shrugs. ‘Honestly? Bit of both.’
That makes me feel so much better and we sit in comfortable silence for a moment, listening to the sounds of the night outside.
It’s strange – I’ve known this man for less than an hour, and half of that time was spent trying to stop him bleeding, but there’s something easy about talking to him.
Something uncomplicated and straightforward.
Eventually he lets out a reluctant sigh and pushes a hand through his hair, which only makes it stick up in even more directions, and then carefully lifts his injured leg onto the floor and stretches it out to move his ankle around. ‘It’s late, I should go.’
‘Are you sure you should be walking around? That leg…’
‘I’m fine.’ He can’t quite hide the groan as he pushes himself upright and remembers to duck his head before it collides with the roof again.
He makes his way gingerly towards the door, holding on to the wall to steady himself and moving with such a cautious gait that he’s clearly in more pain than he’s letting on.
I dodge past him and drag binbags out of the way so he’s got a clear path, and the sound of broken china clattering fills the van as the vintage teapot makes its presence known, reminding me that finding it on the lawn this morning really was just this morning.
Reece stops. ‘That binbag doesn’t sound like it should be making that noise. Did I break something when I fell over it?’
‘No, it was already broken. I went round some sharp bends on the way here,’ I say, because I don’t want to get into why it was really broken and what it represented.
He pauses at the door and the look he gives me suggests he knows there’s more to the story than I’m letting on. Instead of pushing it, he ducks his head towards me. ‘I guess I’ll see you in the morning?’
I think about it. On the one hand, maybe I should do a runner. Drive on like I was never here. I could go to Scotland. Jared would never think to look for me in the Outer Hebrides…
Thimblenouth has changed and whatever it is I was hoping to find here, it sounds like it’s long gone, but on the other hand, I’m exhausted, and the thought of going back out on the road makes a cold sweat prickle all over me.
I look into his eyes and feel that sense of warmth in my chest again.
I have a responsibility to make sure he’s okay, don’t I?
‘No. I will see you in the morning and have another look at that leg, and if it looks even slightly worse, I am taking you to the nearest hospital. Understood?’
He laughs at my bossiness, turning himself around so he can climb out of the van onto his good leg, and I can’t help wincing as he hobbles on the gravel.
He takes a couple of steps towards his semi-destroyed campground, but he waves a hand towards it. ‘I’ll deal with that in the morning. I’ve had all the excitement I can take for one night.’
‘Do you have somewhere to sleep?’
‘Got a room in the house I’ve been using when the weather’s rough.’ He lifts a hand and gives me a goodbye salute. ‘And thank you. For the first aid and the tea, I mean. Not for the whole driving-into-me thing. That, I could’ve done without.’
Even in the darkness, I can see the twinkle in his eyes. ‘It was nice to meet you, Miss Cloned Sheep.’
I burst out laughing so hard that I nearly fall out of the van where I was still standing in the doorway. ‘Nice to meet you too, R-double e-c-e.’
His laugh echoes through the car park as he heads for the steps that lead up to the pub, and I watch his limping figure until the darkness swallows him up.
I close the van doors and sink onto the bench seat he’s just vacated, looking around at my temporary home. I still have the keys to the café in my pocket and I get them out and hold them until the metal is warm in my hands.
This is so far away from how I imagined today would go, but the strange thing is, despite everything, I feel lighter than I have in months.
Maybe it’s the Yorkshire air. Or maybe it’s the strange relief that comes with doing something completely, utterly, irreversibly reckless.
Tomorrow, I’ll figure out what to do next.
Tonight, I’m going to climb the ladder to the bed beneath the van’s roof, sleep like I’ve driven three hundred miles today, and dream of a blue-eyed, messy-haired camper who made me laugh when it was the last thing I felt like doing.