Chapter 38
It was one of those beautiful early-November days when the whole of the English countryside is a landscape of emerald, ivy green and ochre brown and orange and scarlet and burnished gold.
The sky was whitish blue and the sun was making one last valiant effort to warm up the ground before it stepped backwards, relinquishing its power to the icy breath of winter.
Jade and Finn, and Sarah, Callum and Ben were at Corfe Castle.
They’d finally organised the picnic they’d talked about having so many times.
Except that as it was November and they hadn’t been sure if the weather would hold out they hadn’t actually brought a picnic, but had booked a Sunday carvery in a nearby pub.
‘We should have got a picnic,’ Ben grumbled as he climbed the path beside them, with Chocko, who was by his side as always, straining on her lead. ‘It’s lovely and sunny and we could have used our new picnic basket with the tartan blanket.’
‘We could have done that, but then one of us would have had to carry it up here, and it’s heavy enough, even when it’s empty,’ Sarah told him.
‘What’s the point of it then?’ Ben raised his eyebrows at his mother.
‘The point is that we pack it up to the hilt and put it in the car and drive it some place where we don’t have to walk very far.’
‘Somewhere that’s not built at the top of a very steep hill,’ Jade added, shooting him an affectionate glance.
‘We have got a bit of a picnic anyway,’ Finn remarked. He had Mickey on the lead and the small dog pricked up his ears at the word ‘picnic’. He knew all human words that could possibly pertain to food.
‘Have we?’ Jade said. She had Buddy, who wasn’t yet as astute as the food-motivated cockerpoo.
‘Yes, we’ve got a pocket picnic. It’s in my pockets.’
‘And mine,’ Callum added.
‘What’s in your pockets? Show me!’ Ben demanded, trying to dive in for a look in Finn’s coat and narrowly avoiding tripping over Chocko as he did it.
Finn sidestepped out of the way. So did Callum. ‘You’ll have to wait and see.’
They all laughed. They also stopped talking because they needed their breath to climb the stony uphill path.
But it was worth it when a few minutes later they came out at the top of the hill.
‘William the Conqueror definitely picked the highest point to build his castle,’ Callum said. He was the most out of breath and had paused to look at the view. ‘You can see for miles.’
‘You can see forever and ever,’ Ben said, standing beside him and looking out. ‘You can see hills and forests and towns and sheep and everything.’
‘You really can,’ Jade said.
‘How high is it, Dad?’
‘It’s fifty-five metres, son.’
‘Impressive.’ Jade smiled at him and he clicked his tongue.
‘It was on the brochure.’ He stepped forward to stand next to Ben. ‘You can see the sea on a clear day. Is it clear enough to see the sea?’
‘Yay, I can see lots of sea. Is it the Atlantic?’
‘Technically it’s the English Channel.’
‘Is it time for our pocket picnic?’
Sarah and Jade laughed.
‘Is he ever not hungry?’ Jade asked her.
‘Only when he’s asleep.’
The pocket picnic turned out to be a packet of chocolate buttons, a minipack of Cheddars and a couple of Callum’s favourite peanut butter granola bars.
‘If you eat all that lot you’ll be too full for lunch,’ Sarah admonished. ‘Boys, what were you thinking?’
‘It’s only a taster for the view,’ Callum defended. ‘We’ll still have plenty of room for lunch, won’t we, lads?’
‘Two Cheddars each and one each for the dogs and chocolate buttons just melt in your mouth anyway,’ Ben said quickly.
Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘Save the granola bars for after lunch.’
There was reluctant agreement.
‘And don’t leave any wrappers lying around.’
They wouldn’t anyway, Jade thought as she watched the people she loved most in the world sharing out snacks and bantering.
They all cared about the same things, these guys. Animals, the planet, each other. They milled around the ruined castle, marvelling at the ancient battlements and the miracle that any of it at all was still standing after more than a thousand years.
A little while later she became aware that Sarah had come to stand beside her at one of the gaps in the pale stone walls.
‘What are you thinking, bestie?’
‘I was thinking that I’m really, really lucky having you and Ben and now Callum and Finn in my life.
And a whole new family to get to know. I’m really looking forward to meeting the rest of them at Christmas.
And this is going to sound really cheesy but I’m really lucky being surrounded by so much love too. ’
Sarah’s eyes softened. ‘Yeah, it does sound really cheesy. But I know what you mean. Even your old mum loved you, eh! In her own way. Trust me, I’m not defending her – she was fairly rubbish on the old maternal stakes.’
‘She was, but at least now I know she was doing her best.’
‘Yeah, I’ll go along with that.’ Sarah’s eyes shadowed briefly. ‘I guess you could say the same about my biological mother. She did what she thought was best when she stuck me in care. Maybe she was right.’
‘Do you think you’ll ever try tracking her down and asking her?’ Jade ventured, because this was a subject that so rarely ever came up. Sarah usually avoided it determinedly.
‘Nah,’ Sarah said. ‘I don’t think I will.’ She hugged her arms around herself. ‘It’s getting a bit nippy up here, isn’t it? Shall we round up the boys and head off for this lunch before the carvery runs out?’
She was right, Jade thought, a chill little wind had just sprung up and was wending its way through the cracks of the old castle walls and ruffling her hair. ‘I think we should.’
‘Oi,’ Sarah shouted across to Ben, Finn and Callum. ‘Last one down pays the bill.’
Jade heard their laughter as Sarah headed off a little way in front. They had quite a head start. Not that it mattered because she knew as well as Sarah did that Callum and Finn would meander down at their own pace with the dogs.
But it was great fun, hurtling down the hill after Sarah, and letting Ben and Chocko overtake her until they were finally back at the turnstile once more, breathless and exhilarated.
‘Did I ever tell you about the time Jade and I had a picnic at Corfe Castle when we were teenagers?’ Sarah asked her son.
‘Multiple times.’ Ben gave her a massive eye roll.
‘And now we’ve done it all together as a family.’
‘And… your point is?’
Ben giggled as he saw his mother’s mock scolding expression.
‘My point is, young man, that one day you’ll look back on this as a brilliant childhood memory. And you’ll think, wasn’t I lucky to have such an amazing childhood!’
‘I might,’ Ben said.
‘You will,’ Sarah said, laughing and exchanging glances with Jade.
‘We’ll remind him on a regular basis,’ Jade said, glancing over their shoulders as Finn and Callum finally rocked up.
‘That was fun,’ Finn said.
‘And I’m still pretty hungry,’ Callum added. ‘Shall we get off to lunch then?’
‘We need a family photo first,’ Sarah said. ‘Come on, everyone, this is going to be a memory. A perfect moment we can all look back on.’
She asked a passing woman to take a picture so they could all be in it, dogs too, and handed over her phone and after some messing about to make sure they were all facing the same direction, it was done.
Jade and Sarah studied the pictures to make sure at least one wasn’t blurred.
And there was one perfect one. One perfect memory. One perfect moment.
They were clustered together like any of the other families on the ancient hillside, past and present, Jade thought.
Chatting and laughing. And it was so ordinary and also, suddenly, so extraordinary to realise that every person who had ever walked this hill would have different memories of it.
All of the feet that had trodden this way for thousands of years, and would continue to tread this way in the days and the years and the centuries that were still to come.
And also that all of those individuals would have memories that would change too, across the years.
Whatever photos they had to mark the occasion.
‘I’ve loved it today,’ Jade said aloud. ‘That’s good enough for me.’
‘Me too,’ Finn said. ‘It’s great to do something different.’
‘Och aye,’ Callum murmured.
‘Same,’ Sarah said.
‘It was pretty cool,’ Ben said, bending to stroke Chocko’s head.
Jade wondered whether she should tell them about the philosophical thoughts she’d just been turning over in her head, but she wasn’t sure she knew how to put them into words that would make any sense.
So in the end she just linked arms with Sarah and Finn and smiled and said, ‘Perfect moments, right?’ and they both nodded and smiled back at her.
And that, Jade decided, was good enough for now.