Chapter 36
Maya was a bundle of nerves. The summer breeze lifted strands of her hair out of place and she hooked them behind her ear again. Ever the professional, she wore pressed trousers, a crisp, ironed, navy-blue shirt with their logo, The Skylarks written beneath the silhouetted bird in flight, across the back.
Things were well underway at the airfield for the Whistlestop River Air Ambulance. Most of the town were here – the pub’s owners, the man who ran the pharmacy, a few faces from the town hall, families she recognised from the neighbouring streets to her own. There was no opportunity to sneak off and try to call Noah. She had no idea how things had gone for him with Conrad and Paul. She’d been checking her phone whenever she could to find out and the fact she hadn’t heard a thing had to be a good sign, surely? Or was it the other way round, with no word an indication that things hadn’t gone to plan?
Maya had already done a talk to the general public today about Hilda, their trusty helicopter. The real Hilda was sitting out on the helipad, ready to go. With both crews here, they were all participating in the open day with the blue team on standby to go out should they get a job. Inside the hangar was another helicopter, one Frank and the team he worked with had brought here so that visitors to the open day would be able to climb inside, have a good look around and ask questions of Maya or Vik, whoever was on their helicopter stint at the time.
The airbase was filled with people from the town and its surrounds. They always got a good turn-out here, especially when the sun was shining. It was a great fundraiser and they’d had generous donations so far to support the work that they did.
Patrick, an amateur cyclist who had defied the odds and not only survived but got back on his bike following horrific, life-threatening injuries, stood up on the makeshift stage and addressed the crowds, onlookers whisper-quiet while he recounted what had happened to him.
He finished by saying, ‘If it wasn’t for The Skylarks then I might not be here today. So please, do give generously so the crews of the Whistlestop River Air Ambulance can keep saving lives.’
Some of the members of the Whistlestop River fire station had come along today too and, following Patrick’s speech, Maya noticed that Bess had her eye on firefighter Gio.
‘You’re watching me,’ said Bess when she passed by Maya with a tub filled with cold bottles of water to distribute to the crowds.
‘Gio’s nice,’ Maya smiled, taking her head back to the day at hand. Well, the best she could anyway. Gio was over six foot tall with dark hair, a muscular build and very curious green eyes, at least when it came to Bess.
‘He is,’ smiled Bess as she held the tub and a group of kids descended to quench their thirst. ‘But we’re just good friends.’ She waited until they were alone. ‘I’ve never mixed work with pleasure, don’t intend to start now.’
‘Can’t ignore that spark, though,’ Maya teased.
Bess wasted no time batting back, ‘Yeah? Talking from personal experience?’
Maya was rescued from having to answer anything about the insinuation she might well have a spark with Noah when a couple of young girls came over to ask her all about being a pilot. They wanted to know if they had to be cleverer than boys to be able to do it.
It was soon time for Maya and Bess to run the demonstration of what happened when a job came in, from the phone ringing to grabbing the helmets and their gear and heading out to start up Hilda. Kate and Bess had done a demonstration of resuscitation, a few of the crew had acted out a scenario of a drowning rescue, and those events were on repeat to some extent throughout the day depending on crowds evolving over the four-hour period.
But those parts of the day were manageable. It was waiting to hear from Noah that was stressful, what had her struggling to focus. And it was knowing what she was going to do as soon as she had her closest teammates with her that had Maya’s palms clammy, her heart beating harder, worry lines etched on her forehead.
Maya only wanted to have to tell the whole truth once. Well, three times. Late last night, she’d called her sister Julie and told her everything, sobbing at some points, confessing everything and taking the comfort in Julie’s voice. All Julie had been concerned with was that Maya had kept this all to herself for so long and that Conrad had been making her life difficult with his threats to blow it wide open.
The conversation with Julie prepared Maya for calling Isaac afterwards. She’d wanted Isaac to hear the story from her and telling Julie everything first meant she had got some of the emotion out of her story; she could give him the facts without making her son too worried that his mum was in a terrible place because of this secret. Isaac, her darling Isaac, had responded the way she’d always hoped he would. He understood she hadn’t been in a very good place in her life, that she hadn’t purposely committed any crime, and most of all, it made sense to him now why she stayed in Conrad’s life so much.
‘Mum, he’s no right to do this to you.’ His jaw was clenched, something she knew happened when he was angry. The expression lost nothing over FaceTime. She’d first seen it when Isaac was a little boy and a kid had knocked over his snowman on purpose because it was the best one on the street. It was a look that said he was furious and contemplating his next move. ‘I’m done with him, Mum. It’s not for you to sort out. Dad is old enough to look after himself, talk to me however he wants and if we don’t get on then that’s between us now. You’ve tried your hardest; I think it’s time you stopped.’
She sighed, closed her eyes. And then he brought up her own dad.
‘I know things with you and Grandad aren’t great. Grandad knows it too. But the difference between him and Dad is that Grandad still loves and respects you.’
She was beginning to believe that for herself since they’d started to communicate.
‘I never said anything before because Grandad didn’t want me to. But he knew he had to sort it out for himself – that’s another difference. Dad expects everyone else to do the work except him. Grandad isn’t like that. He knows he made wrong decisions along the way and I can tell he has a lot of regret.’
‘We’ve talked, recently.’ And she’d smiled when she told her son that, as she explained what happened after her mother died, what her grandparents tried to do. ‘We’re getting there,’ she said.
‘Good for you, Mum. Grandad is a good man.’
‘He is. And I’m glad you and he have always been in contact.’
But Isaac hadn’t wanted to focus on his grandad at that point. ‘I see Dad trying to get one up on you by having time with me like this plan to go to Ireland. I’m assuming you’re not fighting it because of him threatening to tell the whole town the truth about you?’
‘I’m sorry, Isaac.’
‘Why are you sorry? You’re not the one blackmailing someone they supposedly loved once upon a time and the person they have a child with.’
Maya snapped out of her reverie at the open day. She showed an elderly lady the way to the bathrooms, answered some questions from a family about the helicopter itself and why it was called Hilda. And after Nadia did another talk about some of the upcoming fundraising activities they had or ways the general public could hold their own to support the charity, she knew she’d go crazy if she put it off any longer.
She had to tell someone the truth. Conrad’s job was on the line if Noah shared that recording, which meant her secret was safe. But Maya had had enough of her past hanging over her indefinitely.
She saw her opportunity when Nadia, mother hen of The Skylarks, headed to the kitchen with Bess, and Frank looked like he was on his way to join them. With the other crew perfectly capable of handling things outside, she slipped into the airbase building too.
‘Tea?’ Bess offered her when Maya joined the three of them in the kitchen.
Nadia sat on one of the chairs opposite Frank, who’d grabbed a pork pie from the fridge, and closed her eyes. ‘I’m just closing my eyes for five minutes; wake me after that time, would you?’
Bess laughed but not when she saw Maya’s face. ‘What’s going on?’
Frank was alert to trouble and popped the last of his pork pie into his mouth. Nadia opened her eyes and Maya only hoped the lot of them would understand what she was about to tell them. She never dreamed she’d do it today, but everything was coming to a head and perhaps a conversation that couldn’t last too long given the event today was better. Like ripping off a plaster, it would be quick, over with just like that.
She pushed the door closed. ‘I need to tell you all something and if I don’t do it now, I’ll lose my nerve.’
‘Go on, love,’ Frank urged. She wondered whether that same concern would show on his face when he heard what she had to say.
‘You guys have known me for years, ever since I moved to Whistlestop River. I’ve lived in the area for over two decades and I love this town. It’s a part of me. I’d do anything for Whistlestop River and its people, for The Skylarks.’ She felt the hard ridge of the sink as she leant against it.
‘We know you would,’ said Bess to a chorus of agreement from the others.
‘Then here goes,’ said Maya. But if she was ousted, she wasn’t sure how she would be able to pick up the pieces. She’d worked hard to earn a place in the town, respect, friendships and ties, and to lose them would break her heart.
All she could do now was start at the very beginning, the first day she’d ever come to Whistlestop River. She wouldn’t say all of the details out loud, just the basics, the dreaded bullet points to explain.
But it didn’t mean the details of what had happened all those years ago weren’t still in her head.