Chapter 8
8
T he best part of Fleur’s day normally arrived at around 7:30 pm, when the cottage was quiet, she’d eaten, and had wrapped up her workday. She liked to call it her notebook time. In the sitting room, with the gingham curtains open, she arranged her personal notebook on the coffee table along with her laptop, a tablet, a half-read paperback, and her phone. All she needed was a nice glass of wine, and all would be right with the universe. Life in her little cottage tucked away from the world as she knew it, really was quite good. Turning over one of her notebooks covered in a beautiful strawberry and paisley fabric, she smiled as she remembered finding the fabric in a little haberdashery shop down near Portsmouth. She’d strolled into it one day on her lunch hour when she’d been giving a training course in a small business centre. On spotting the fabric, she had immediately fallen in love. She’d bought a yard of it and now here it was covering one of her books. It was one of the reasons she loved bookbinding; each book came with its own special memory of where and how it had started off. Nodding at the little pastel pink page marker annotations poking out the side and the pink and grey elastic pen holder she’d made, she felt quite pleased at another one of her creations and a job well done.
Pulling the elastic band off and over the front, she flicked to one of the tabs and started to consult random notes that had tumbled out of her mind a few weeks previously. After that, she turned to the side again and flipped to the section on places she liked the look of; little restaurants she’d passed, places she’d seen on her socials that she wanted to visit, exhibitions, and museums and pretty much anything that took her fancy. Flipping through she remembered things here and there and decided that she needed to get out there and start visiting some of the places in her books. There was a whole section on a museum she wanted to go to in Surrey, an art gallery doing an Art Nouveau collection in London, and a house down near Dover that detailed things that had gone on under the White Cliffs in the war.
Getting to the section on travelling and far-flung climes she was surprised at how many notes she’d made. For someone who’d only been out of the country a few times, there was a whole list of countries she wanted to visit. Unfortunately, the places on her list were more or less dreams; ones she’d never quite had the time, inclination or money to fulfil. Forever dreams that really were never going to happen. Turning over the pages, she read through notes she’d made about visiting Hawaii, somewhere she’d always wanted to go, and smiled as she remembered that her dad had always said he’d fancied going to Hawaii too. This was why our Champo liked her notebooks; they took her back to other times, let her remember her thoughts and helped her mind zoom back to days gone by.
Tucking her feet up under her, she sat back on the sofa, sipped her wine, and got lost in notes, lists and words. Continuing to read notes she’d made the year before about Hawaii, the more she read and pondered, the more she felt like throwing caution to the wind and booking a holiday. As she perused the length of the flight, the cost, and a few hotels she had found, she nodded as the notion became less and less like a pipe dream, and more and more attractive by the minute.
Reading her notes about Waikiki hotels and all the other islands, as well as the food and history of Hawaii and stuff about the war, Fleur smiled. Something about Hawaii had always caught her eye. She distinctly remembered her grandma, years and years before, when Fleur could not have been more than seven years old, watching old Elvis in Hawaii films on repeat. Right from then there had always been something about it calling her, tinkering with a little button on the side of her head, triggering some sort of fascination about a place she didn’t know.
Along with Hawaii, she’d always fancied going to Japan, and then, of course, as she turned the pages, there were the usual European places that were a lot closer to home. Walking in the mountains of Norway had tickled her fancy along with visiting Poland and participating in the vodka. Sipping and reading, she decided that she really needed to knuckle down, stop procrastinating and make one of her bucket list travel plans happen, otherwise, another year would go by and she wouldn’t have been anywhere at all. Same old story right there in front of her face. Unless you put yourself out there and got on with it nothing would change.
Flipping open her banking app to have a little look at her savings, she looked in her account and was pleasantly surprised. Since she’d been doing the markets, selling her notebooks online, and continuing with her social media postings, the money from her notebooks had continued to trickle into her savings account and had built up quite nicely. It was certainly not life-changing and was never going to pay off her mortgage but the income from her bookbinding was a nice little side hustle that was adding to a nest egg. As the months had gone on and she’d not touched the money, it had accumulated and continued to do so. After years of not having much money put away for a rainy day, Fleur now not only had money for a rainy day but, in fact, money for a sunny day—by way of a trip somewhere else in the world. She’d been waiting for tropical sunshine for long enough. Maybe it was time to take the bull by the horns.
Flipping back to the travel section, she turned another few pages, added a tab, and started to add up the cost of various trips. Popping onto Google to check flights, she calculated the cost of a flight to Hawaii and couldn’t quite believe how much more economical they were compared to the last time she’d looked. Clearly, global travel had meant that travelling for the regular person had become more affordable, normal even. She could work with that. As she sat and stared at the figures and looked at the length of the flight, she realised that she could possibly make a trip to Hawaii if she really wanted to. Hoo blooming ray.
Just as she was adding up the figures and flipping through her calendar app on her phone, a WhatsApp video call from Patrick popped up. She pressed the button, propped up the phone on the side of the sofa, and smiled.
‘Hey, how are you?’ Patrick asked. ‘You look cosy.’
Fleur nodded. She felt cosy, relaxed, and in the zone. She was cocooned in the corner of the sofa, her hair up on top of her head, dressed in her softest clothes with a tracksuit on, lost in her notebooks and covered in a patchwork quilt. It was her favourite time of the evening, and she loved how the decompression was hitting her in waves. ‘Hi, yes, I am. I’m in my happy place. What are you up to?’
Patrick pointed to himself. ‘As you can see, I’m not up to much other than chilling in my hotel room waiting for the morning. I have a feeling you’re sitting there with your notebooks, am I right?’
Fleur laughed. ‘Yes, how did you guess?’ She turned her phone around to show the coffee table and her notebook and panned in on the pages.
‘What are you looking at there?’
‘Actually, you’ll never guess. Have a go.’
Patrick frowned and joked. ‘I’ve no idea. You’re not writing notes on the birth of the century are you? ’
‘Gosh, no. Don’t mention Sarah or the birth. It’s died a death thank goodness.’ Fleur held the book up again in front of the screen. ‘I’ve been looking at my travel section and places I want to go. I’ve had this section going for years but I’ve never really made any of them happen. There are so many places on my bucket list.’
‘Like?’
‘I’ve always wanted to go to Japan and Norway, and I really fancy Hawaii.’
‘Alright, not too far then,’ Patrick joked. ‘No quick trip to Ibiza for our Fleur. You have your sights set on far-away climes.’
‘I’d like to go anywhere at the moment, to be quite honest.’
‘So, you fancy Japan then?’
‘Well, I fancy Hawaii over Japan, but yeah, I’ve just been looking at the cost of the flights, and it’s not as expensive as I thought.’
Patrick raised his hands and then shrugged. ‘Let’s do it then.’
‘What do you mean, let’s do it?’
‘Why not? You deserve a week off. I’m sure we could manage a trip to Hawaii.’
Fleur frowned. ‘Just like that! We can’t just take off like that! I think it’s a long way to go just for a week, too.’
‘Why can’t we just take off? There’s nothing stopping us. Alright, what about ten days? I’m sure you’ve got ten days’ holiday, and you can do enough at your shop so you’ve got stuff backed up to keep that going.’
‘Hmm. Nah, I can’t just jet off somewhere like that at a drop of a hat.’
‘Why don’t you price it up, and we’ll have a proper, serious look?’ Patrick leant forward into the screen like a man ready to book a flight that very second.
‘You make it sound like booking a cab into town. This is Hawaii, Patrick. You don’t just “price it up” and hop on a plane.’
‘I don’t see why not. I’m the owner of my business, so I can basically do what I want and you get paid holiday from work. Fleur, I hate to break it to you; that is what holiday is for.’
Fleur rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, it must be nice to be the owner of a fancy business,’ she teased, reaching for her laptop. ‘Meanwhile, some of us mere mortals have to check if we actually have enough holiday time to swan off to the other side of the world for ten days.’
Patrick smirked. ‘Go on then, let’s see what the gods of annual leave have to say.’
Fleur sighed, flipping open her laptop and navigating to her work documents as if she were checking to see if she had won the lottery. She scrolled, tapped, scrolled again, and smiled. ‘Yeah, I’ve got loads.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve got loads of holiday left. Like, a ridiculous amount.’
‘Excellent. That’s one less hurdle. Now, all we need to do is choose the dates, book the flights, and we’re off.’
Fleur gave him a long, sceptical look. ‘Do you actually think this could happen? Because it sounds like one of those things we talk about at 10 pm with a glass of wine in hand, and then in the morning, we realise it’s completely unrealistic. At least that’s what I will think tomorrow morning…’
Patrick shook his head. ‘Nope. I mean it. You’ve got holiday, I run my own business, and therefore, I can simply declare that we’re going to Hawaii. What our Champo wants, our Champo gets.’
Fleur laughed. ‘Right. And what about your clients? Your staff?’
‘The world will still be here when we get back. Let’s be real, I run an electrical company. I'm not in charge of NATO. Nothing I do is so important that it can’t be paused for ten days. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? A few emails build up? Someone has to actually answer the phone? Utter chaos will not prevail. I really am not that important.’
Fleur shook her head. ‘This is Hawaii. Not Cornwall. Not the Lake District. It’s literally on the other side of the planet.’
Patrick grinned. ‘Which is exactly why we should go. If it was Cornwall, you’d just say, “Oh, we’ll do it next year.” But because it’s Hawaii, it’s a bucket list thing that we’ll actually do.’
‘Let’s theoretically price this up.’ Fleur tapped a few keys, pulled up a flight comparison site, and nodded. ‘The flights are actually cheaper than the last time I looked. Either that or I have no concept of money anymore.’
Patrick shrugged. ‘Maybe both.’
‘Look, if we fly out midweek instead of at the weekend, it’s even cheaper. And if we don’t mind a stopover in LA?—’
‘I love a stopover in LA,’ Patrick interrupted.
‘You love an airport with no fresh air and overpriced sandwiches?’
Patrick shrugged. ‘I enjoy the drama of international travel.’
‘Alright, well, the drama of international travel could save us a few hundred pounds if we do it that way.’
‘And yet, you’re still hesitating. What’s the issue?’
Fleur bit her lip. ‘It just feels, I don’t know. Irresponsible? I’ve never just jetted off somewhere. I’ve never had the cash for off-the-cuff jaunts, you know?’
‘We’re not robbing a bank. We’re planning a holiday. People do it all over the world, every single day, Fleur.’
‘I know, but it’s Hawaii. That’s really special. People go there for special reasons like weddings, big birthdays, proposals, all sorts.’
‘It’s just a place, with hotels, and people, and food, and will mean that you can switch off.’
Fleur couldn’t quite believe it was even an option let alone that it could be a reality. ‘With beaches, volcanoes, and stunning scenery, and lovely looking cocktails.’
‘Which is exactly why we should go there.’
Fleur sighed, looking back at the screen. ‘You make it sound so simple.’
‘It is simple. You have the time off. I have the time off. We have the money. Lucy is okay. Even the baby that has nothing to do with us has arrived safely. We’re not waiting for anyone’s permission. Why wouldn’t we go?’
‘You’re right.’
‘I’ve always wanted to climb up a volcano.’ Patrick grinned.
‘I’ll mull it over and start a notebook.’
Patrick rolled his eyes. ‘I’ll take that as a yes. If there’s a notebook involved it might be happening.’
Fleur giggled. He knew her too well.