Chapter Thirteen #2
A duck takes off from the village pond, its wings batting frantically.
At the splashing, it comes to me how soundless the morning otherwise is.
There’s no one about at all, no cars nor bikes on the road, and although I suspect Bramble Rise is going to be much busier – a circus, like Nick said – I don’t think about that.
I think about Nick, and the fact that he’s just reached for my hand, taking it in his as we continue walking behind Emma and Felix.
Easily, our fingers weave together, just as they have hundreds of times before, only not recently – not until last night, when, recalling Emma’s words, I think he might need you to be you, I was the one to reach for Nick, telling him his was the only child I’ve ever wanted.
And now here we are, holding hands again.
It’s funny how much easier it can feel to do something, once you start doing it.
Tightening my grip on his, I move my attention to the church’s cemetery, which is full of leafless trees, and crooked headstones that poke from the iced earth.
My grandparents are buried beneath that earth somewhere, in their graves that neither Mum nor I have visited.
I asked her why once, years ago, when I was a teenager, and she got really defensive.
‘We’ve got them with us here,’ she said, pressing her hand to her heart. ‘That’s all that matters.’
She’s right about that, I know. But I do also think that she, who’s lectured me …
how many times? … on the importance of facing up to my grief, is too afraid to come back here and face up to hers.
I’m pretty sure that’s part of why she’s been so worried about me coming back.
It’s made this place too real to her again. Too close.
Now I am here, though, it feels really wrong that we’ve never come.
With my hand still in Nick’s, I feel tears, always so ready, rise up inside of me, threatening to break free.
Hastily, I wipe them away with the back of my free hand, and resolve to return and visit this cemetery, just as soon as I can.
I’ll bring Nan and Grandad some flowers, at last.
It doesn’t take us long after that to reach Bramble Rise, no matter how slowly we walk, all as reluctant as each other to get there. I’m braced, even before we do, for what it looks like, and the fact that Robbie’s old home is the only part of it that remains from before the war.
Just as with Heaton’s old school, its redevelopment has meant that we can’t use it for any outdoor filming.
For the most part, the screenplay has avoided having any, but there is a montage of Iris and Robbie in the lane as children – with different aged actors showing them growing up, step by step – for which everyone involved will once again have to relocate, this time to a bucolic laneway near Thornton-Le-Dale, which is apparently a perfect match for the rugged one that Imogen paints in her novel.
I’ve never imagined it as particularly rugged myself; more soft, peaceful, and bramble-lined, with a stile leading to fields of grazing livestock, and the scent of woodsmoke in the air.
But, I’ve seen Nick’s photos, and all the others that Bomber Boy enthusiasts have posted online, so really am aware that, whatever Bramble Rise used to be, it’s now a tarmacked strip of road, with Heaton’s replacement primary school at its head (built in 1952, to cater for the influx of residents who moved into Heaton’s post-war housing), The Heaton Arms at its end, and rows of identical, red-bricked terraces in between.
Iris’s cottage is long gone. Any stile that might once have existed is, too.
I know that.
It still jars though when we reach the lane, and, by the gates of Heaton Primary, I take in everything that’s before me: all neat, and ordered, and double-glazed. It doesn’t feel right. The road’s tarmac is too smooth. The houses are too modern.
Just like my reflection in Iris’s mirror, none of it seems to fit.
And, unlike in Heaton just now, nothing feels remotely familiar to me, even though my grandparents’ estate is really close by.
Much closer than I felt inclined to share with Blake earlier, who was wired enough as it was.
Close enough, in fact, that it’s called Bramble Edge, and, when I look up, I can see its chimneys poking above the school’s buildings.
I feel no pull to it. No temptation to set off in search of Nan and Grandad’s front door. The last thing I want to do, actually, is that. Because Mum’s right, they’re not there, they haven’t been in almost thirty years, and it belongs to someone else now.
Not that I imagine that they – whoever they are – are currently home.
I don’t think there can be many people left on the estate at all.
I doubt there are any children inside the school’s classrooms, either.
And I know now why the village was as empty as it was.
It’s because all of Heaton is here.
Not a handful of locals, like Blake said.
But a lot.
A horde, in actual matter: the kids all cheering at their school gate, clutching pieces of paper that I guess their teachers have doled out to them for autographs, then crowds of others who, now they’ve spotted us, rush down the road with big smiles, their phones out, snapping photos.
Press photographers push ahead of them, aiming their wide-angled lenses in our direction, whilst reporters forge ahead of the photographers, calling out our names, shouting their demands to know our inner-most feelings.
‘I’m going to end Blake,’ breathes Nick.
‘Get in line,’ says Felix.
‘I actually don’t know if I can do this,’ says Emma.
Nor do I.
But, as I once again glance at the school gate, I lock eyes with a little girl in a Peppa Pig hat, whose face is all flushed and hopeful and shy, and I know I will do it.
Summoning my smile, I do do it, going to that girl, and asking her name (Jaymee), then her age (six), and whether she has any brothers or sisters (just an older brother; he’s annoying.
‘No, I’m not,’ exclaims an only slightly bigger boy, in a Hulk hat, making me laugh).
Holding up her paper, Jaymee asks if she can have my autograph, please, and, telling her that of course she can, I crouch, taking her pen, resting the paper on my knee to sign it.
‘Cinderella is my favourite movie,’ she says, so quietly I have to strain to hear her above the racket.
‘Oh, mine too,’ I say, and don’t embarrass her by saying it was actually Lily James who played Cinderella. I just write her a message, telling her what a thrill it’s been to meet her, and hand her the paper back.
It’s taken maybe forty-five seconds of my time, that’s all, but it’s made her so happy.
Giggling, she turns to wave her paper at her little pals, all of whom are waving theirs at me – and Nick, and Felix, and Emma, who, doing it, have joined us.
We all keep doing it, not for the press – who the headmistress instructs to remain outside the school gate, and who we ignore entirely – but for these really sweet, polite kids, and their teachers, and everyone else, who, on this freezing Friday morning, has turned out, just because they heard we were on our way, and wanted to say hello.
None of the other adults who’ve come are allowed past the school gates either, so they remain there with the press, waiting for us to get to them.
No one complains though, or tries to push it, and we take it in turns to flit back and forth between them and the children: signing, grasping hands, posing for selfies, smiling, smiling, smiling.
To my amazement, Nick knows the names of quite a few of the children, and greets them with fist bumps like they’re the only people he could possibly have hoped to run into this morning.
Clearly, he’s met them around the village before.
And not only does he remember their names, but also their favourite football teams, and songs.
He even notices that a boy called Hugo has lost another tooth since they last saw one another.
‘I hope you got good money for that, buddy,’ he says, eyeing his gaps. ‘You’re not going to be eating anything solid for like a month, at least.’
‘I ate a corn on the cob last night.’
‘That’s pretty impressive.’
‘And I got five pounds from the tooth fairy.’
‘Five?’ Nick throws me a look. I’m over at the gate again. ‘Was that the going rate for you?’
‘I used to get twenty pence,’ I say, handing a woman back her copy of The Bomber Boys, which I’ve just signed for her daughter, Isla, who’s fifteen, and at secondary school in York, and a huge history buff, and who’d apparently never let her mum hear the end of it if she failed at getting the book autographed.
‘I used to get a quarter,’ says Emma.
‘Twenty pence too,’ say Felix, who grew up in London. ‘I think we’re all showing our age. What did you get, Nick? A nickel?’
‘No,’ Nick ripostes, deadpan. ‘A dime.’
‘That’s ten cents,’ I supply, to the children.
And they all find it really funny.
Gradually, the reporters give up on their questions, seeming to realise that they’re not going to get anything from us, and are running the risk of ruining everyone’s fun.
We’re running the risk of missing our lunch, but even after the children are marshalled back into school for theirs, a lot of the adults remain out with us on the road, despite the cold, quizzing us on the movie, and how it’s going, and whether there’s any chance we can give them a hint as to what might happen with the ending.
We tell them we can’t, that we only wish we could, but are as clueless as anyone.
‘I’ve got a theory that it’s Claude who’s behind all this talk of a change,’ says Felix, throwing me a wink (a wink!). ‘She really doesn’t want to have to get into the sea.’
That gets a lot of laughs, too.
And, when Nick says he doesn’t much want me to have to get into the sea either, he’s rewarded with an ahh that makes us both smile, setting the press cameras off, which I’m sure will make Blake very happy.
‘You wouldn’t really have to do it though, would you?’ a white-haired woman in top-to-toe Sweaty Betty asks me.
‘I’ll absolutely have to do it,’ I tell her. ‘Special effects have come a long way, but not that far.’
‘You’ll make yourself ill,’ she says, aghast.
‘Par for the course on this movie,’ says Emma.
At which everyone laughs again.
It’s almost a quarter to one before the landlord of The Heaton Arms appears, jogging down the road and jovially enquiring as to whether anyone’s planning to come in for lunch, or if he should send the kitchen staff home.
It turns out that a lot of the people out with us also have reservations (more laughter), so we head off as a group for the pub, and – against all the odds, in spite of all my worst expectations – it feels really friendly and nice.
There’s much more goodness in this world than bad, Mum said on the phone.
It’s easier to believe that here.
I haven’t forgotten everything in the news, though.
I know, without needing to ask, that neither Nick nor Emma nor Felix have either.
I’m certain that Nick and Felix must also be thinking about those photos in Sicily, and wondering how many of these people have scrolled through them over their breakfast.
I know I’m wondering which of them has read about my miscarriage.
But there’s only one woman who mentions it.
She approaches me as I’m about to follow the others into the pub.
‘Claudia?’ she says, stopping me with a tentative smile.
She’s about the same age as me, and is wearing a dark-green duffle coat that I noticed a while ago. (It’s that kind of coat.) She’s caught my eye a few times since, hovering at the back of everyone like she was trying to summon the courage to come forward.
I can hear from her voice how nervous she is now that she’s made herself do it.
Trying to put her at her ease, I tell her how much I love her coat, and she smiles again, thanking me.
We’re not alone. Nick’s just ahead of us, waiting for me in the pub doorway, and there are still a lot of people milling around in the lane behind us, not ready for the party to be over. The photographers are still with us, too, cameras poised, seemingly sensing something might be about to happen.
Go away, I wish I could tell them.
Just bloody go.
I can’t do it, though. At least one of them would get a picture of me looking furious, and the photo would be everywhere in hours, probably accompanied by some pithy caption about me losing it.
The woman eyes the photographers uncertainly.
‘Ignore them,’ I tell her quietly. ‘It’s what I do.’
Again, that uneasy smile.
With a breath, she opens her mouth to speak, only to shut it again.
I’m curious, but not apprehensive, about whatever it is that she’s trying to get out.
Instinctively, I warm to this woman.
She’s another bit of goodness, I can tell.
‘What is it?’ I ask her.
‘I,’ she begins, then pauses, biting her lip, before forcing herself on.
‘I wasn’t sure whether I should do this,’ she continues.
‘I’ve been worrying about it. But I’m off work today, so I thought I might as well come along.
And I called my sister, and my husband. They both said I should. That you might appreciate it.’
‘Appreciate what?’ I ask, but even as I do, I feel my heart go out to this woman, and I realise I already know.
‘It happened to me too,’ she tells me, confirming it.
‘Two months ago. I was twenty-one weeks.’ This time when she smiles, I can tell she’s trying not to cry.
‘I just wanted to tell you that I understand, and you’re not alone.
’ She blinks, taking a quick breath. ‘You’re really not alone.
And I’m so sorry for everything extra that you’ve had to go through. ’ She turns to Nick. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry for you, too. I really am.’
‘I can’t imagine how you’re both coping.’ Her eyes are brimming. ‘I couldn’t bear having it all so public. I can’t bear it anyway,’ her voice catches, ‘but I couldn’t bear that.’
I don’t plan to hug her.
But, before I know it, that’s what I’m doing.
And she clings to me, like it means as much to her as it does to me, to share this, if only for a moment.
I don’t question whether we’re being observed.
I don’t care if we’re being photographed.
I don’t think about Blake.
I think about this woman, and her bravery in coming forward to say this to me.
I think of how grateful I am to her for doing it.
And how right mum is.
The hateful voices are loud.
But the kind ones are strong.