Chapter 43
There hadn’t really been time to talk, what with her new recruits to see to around the garden, helping them settle in. Cary had simply told Alice he was glad to see her looking so well and then headed inside the repair shop, followed by Senga Gifford, hot for some gossip.
So Alice had done her job, chatting with the participants and their families, asking about their current prescriptions or their physio regimes, and answering their questions about how she was finding the town, now she was settling in.
She’d helped Jolyon plant a long row of seed potatoes, noting how withdrawn he and his mother were today and finding that nothing she said seemed to cheer them up.
Soon they were out of seeds and glad of the excuse to follow Cary indoors, she excused herself and made her way into the shed.
As she entered, Livvie, Roz and Shell were on their way out, and the little girl was giggling about something.
She’d have thought more of all this if she wasn’t determined to see Cary.
He was at his workbench where he had been deep in conversation with Senga or, more likely, she had been filling him in on Finlay getting lost in the fog and Murray and Nell’s rescue mission. Yes, that would be it. There was so much he’d missed.
‘I’ll leave you two to catch up,’ Senga said upon seeing Alice standing there, and with a look so indiscreet she’d actually wanted to laugh, but Cary didn’t look like he was in the mood for laughter.
‘So, you’re back,’ she told him.
He nodded.
She took her time building up to her next utterance. ‘And… do you think you’re staying?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
This jolted her. ‘Is it me?’ she demanded. ‘Because if it is, I’m sorry. I know you came to the Burns supper that night, Rhona told me she saw you…’
Cary’s face fell.
‘It is me, then!’ she cried. ‘You know I sent Bastian packing, right?’
Cary looked wary.
‘He stayed the night and made you breakfast,’ he said, ‘and he was on about whisking you away for a spa break and how things were going to be different with him around, and then Senga was just telling me about how you have been off on a spa break, which of course is none of my business, but…’
‘A spa break?’ She breathed deep to stop the dizziness striking, just like she’d mastered, working with Bonnie. ‘I was away for one day at a lovely castle, and I suppose, yes, technically it was a spa, but it was a women’s wellness retreat.’
Cary blinked.
‘And I went on my own, or rather, I went with a load of other women and Bonnie was there too.’
‘Bonnie?’
‘The counsellor I’ve been seeing. The one you recommended?’
Cary took a deep breath as light dawned. ‘You weren’t away with your Manchester doctor boyfriend, then?’
‘God, no!’
‘Not that I’d have any right to any kind of opinion about that.’
‘Is Bastian why you’ve been away for so long?’
He shook his head as though not understanding.
‘Oh, no, well, only partially. I went to see Mum. She was moving into sheltered accommodation and I decided to go and help. And yes, it was prompted by your boyfriend coming to get you, but there was also a lot of things of Mum’s to pack and to sort through.
It was a lot of work, moving her from a big house into a small one. ’
‘Oh!’ Alice dropped her heels to the floor. She hadn’t realised she’d been on the balls of her feet until now. ‘Is she OK? Your mum?’
‘She is, thanks.’
‘And that was why you were gone for so long, without telling anyone?’ Without telling me, she thought.
‘I needed to get away from it all, to clear my head for a while. Sometimes even I need to get away, to think. I’m not as self-contained as folks might think, just because I’m quieter than most. And this place can get on a person’s wick, with all its gossiping and never being able to get away from folk. ’
‘You wanted to get away from me.’
‘I needed some time not seeing you, and I wasn’t that keen on seeing you with him. It’s true. Sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise.’ Alice thought of all the noise Bastian had made, coming into town that night, thinking himself a knight in shining armour, all the disruption he’d caused.
A silence bloomed between them. The shed grew warmer.
‘So you’re seeing a counsellor?’ he said at last. ‘I’m glad for you, but I shouldn’t have interfered like that.’
‘No, no, I’m glad you did. It was the push I needed. And you going away showed me I had to rely on myself, first and foremost, but I also had to learn to ask for help, and to say out loud when I was struggling… So that’s what I’ve been doing.’
‘And?’
‘And it’s been great, and hard, and scary, and there’s a long way to go but… overall it’s been good.’
Alice didn’t tell him how she and Bonnie had been working on separating out her anxiety, which kickstarted her frightening visions and catastrophising, from her good dreams, the ones that pointed her in the direction of the things she needed.
Things like a home and a community and her work, and Cary, if he’d ever have her.
‘It took me a few goes to find the right counsellor for me, the right fit,’ Cary said.
‘Me and Bonnie just clicked.’ Alice beamed.
Cary smiled back before asking, ‘Are we friends again?’
‘Should we get back out to the garden?’ she asked, not knowing how to reply to that.
Cary crooked his arm, and she looped her hand through it, and they walked out into the darkening February afternoon just as the floodlight was coming on, drenching the whole place in a golden glow like a summer’s day.