Chapter 6
‘Are you absolutely sure you don’t want me to drive you to the airport?’
Meg watched as Helen opened her travel rucksack for the fifth time, took out her passport and travel documents, checked them over, slid them back into the plastic envelope, then zipped them back in the compartment on the side of her bag.
Helen shook her head vigorously. ‘For one thing you’ve driven all the way up from Yorkshire, for another I doubt my little car would make it all the way to Inverness and back without something vital falling off.’
‘That’s slightly alarming,’ said Meg, drily. ‘I’ll take the campervan if I’m going outside of Applemore, yes?’
‘Oh no, it’ll be fine, I’m almost certain.’ Helen beamed with a confidence that Meg definitely didn’t feel. ‘But third of all and most important, I’ve booked an Uber.’
‘An Uber? In Applemore?’ Meg’s eyebrows shot upwards in astonishment. It looked as if the place had changed a bit since she’d last visited, but somehow the idea of booking an Uber in the tiny village was impossible to imagine.
‘Well, it’s not strictly an Uber, it’s the all-new taxi service. I like to call it that because it sounds fancy. He only operates on Tuesdays and Fridays unless he’s in the mood, so I timed my flight well. Otherwise, I’d have been on the bus to Inverness and staying overnight at the Travelodge near the airport.’
‘What happens if you want a taxi any other day?’ Meg was baffled.
Helen shrugged airily. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never tried. It’s a luxury to be able to call one at all when you’re living out here.’
Meg turned and looked out of the window. The sea was rough and iced with white waves; the wind battering raindrops against the window. The weather outside completely wiped out yesterday’s hint of spring, and it could have been the middle of November. Eliza, no fan of wet weather walks, was flat out and snoring on the rug in front of the roaring wood-burner.
Half an hour later than planned (‘don’t worry, I’d factored that in,’ said Helen, cheerfully) Malcolm appeared, and with a last-minute panic about the size of her cases which filled every space possible, Helen was crammed into the front passenger seat and left, waving madly and promising to call as soon as she arrived at Inverness Airport for the first part of her long journey. It would take almost a day and a half to get from Applemore to Santiago, flying from Inverness to London and then onto the long, long flight which would take Helen to the other side of the world where her daughter was waiting.
Meg closed the door firmly and perched on the edge of the sofa, looking with a smile at Eliza, who’d made herself at home. She was completely unruffled by the chaos that surrounded them. Meg, on the other hand, felt as if her brain was spinning off its axis and she was going slightly mad. If she carried on living in Helen’s muddle, she was more than a little bit worried that she might end up just as scatty and disorganised.
First things first – a cup of coffee, a bowl of hot soapy water in the sink, and a list. Everything was better with a list.
The clutter in the kitchen seemed to be formed of layers like geological strata, or some kind of chaos lasagne. There was a vast amount of paperwork and bills, and below that craft equipment, then an assortment of shopping bags and boxes from online orders – some open, some with now overdue return labels taped on the sides with haphazard strips of sticky-tape. Meg stood at the head of the table and surveyed the room, taking it all in. What was that saying? There’s only one way to eat an elephant – one bite at a time. She rolled up her sleeves. This was quite a big elephant.
She wandered through the cottage, collecting coffee mugs and water glasses which seemed to be scattered all over the place. Helen’s studio where she worked was surprisingly tidy, with just one hand-thrown clay mug balanced on top of a pile of books on the windowsill. The rain had gone off quite suddenly as if someone had switched off a tap somewhere, and a shaft of sunlight broke through huge, dramatic clouds and lit up the room. In the distance, the shapes of the islands seemed to glow a strange purplish black against a slate grey sea. It was the perfect room for an artist to work in. Meg turned, one hand lingering on the windowsill for a moment, and then headed back downstairs.
The mugs would need a long soak as they were tide-marked with long-dried coffee, so she plopped them all into the soapy water and turned once again, frowning. The best thing, she decided, would be to get some cardboard boxes and set about sorting the table. At least if she did that she’d be able to sit down and have dinner in the kitchen, and then perhaps tomorrow she’d work on the sitting room, and then the rest of the house could fall into place a room at a time.
There had to be some big cardboard boxes somewhere – there was no way Helen hadn’t stashed some away in an outhouse, or more likely stuffed them in the back hallway that led out to the garden. There was a key rack on the kitchen wall, which had an assortment of huge old keys hanging – unlabelled, of course. One of them ought to work.
Meg headed outside, pulling the front door open to discover that the sun had broken through. A determined patch of blue sky was trying hard to gain ascendancy over the clouds, and a rainbow shone over the hill that led up to the village of Applemore. The lighthouse stood tall overhead, and Meg gazed up at it in wonder. She’d been so busy rushing to get here, rushing to get settled, and rushing to see Helen off safely that she hadn’t taken a moment to really notice how magical it was.
She tried several keys before she found one that opened the door to the building, which was sandwiched between the cottage and the lighthouse. Inside – along with several enormous spiders, a lot of dust and some random old pieces of furniture which looked like they’d been left over when the previous owner moved out twenty-five years ago – she found a towering stack of plastic storage crates. They’d be absolutely perfect.
On the opposite side of the room, held open with a plastic doorstop, was a solid, half-glazed door. Years before, she’d climbed up with Helen, who’d told her with a mischievous expression that she was absolutely not allowed to do this.
‘But who’s going to know?’ she’d asked, and Meg – wide-eyed with worry – had followed.
But now she was older and braver, so curiosity – and the knowledge that it was very unlikely she’d be caught out – got the better of her. She took a final look around outside before tiptoeing through the doorway and heading up the cool stone steps.
Up and up she climbed, the backs of her calves aching as she stopped halfway for a moment to catch her breath. Bending over, she could feel the blood rushing in her ears. It reminded her of a time when she’d decided to walk up the central staircase at the underground station in Marylebone in London. Only a sense of pride and determination had kept her going as amused passengers had sailed past her on the escalator. She straightened up and trudged upwards, her pace slowing until she reached the window, which looked out across the bay. Galvanised by the sight of the houses of Applemore, she kept going, up the stone steps, round and round, the air cold and damp, until she got to the top.
She pushed open the door, puffed out and heart thumping, and was rewarded with a shaft of sunlight which had broken through the clouds and lit up the light room.
The sky and the sea reached out for miles, making her feel quite dizzy with the enormity of it all. The distant islands seemed smaller from up here, and far below she could see waves crashing on the beach. A few hardy people were out for an afternoon walk between rain showers. Turning, she could see the rolling moors and a patchwork blanket of fields and the dark green forest, divided by the grey of stone walls and thin, dark line of hedges bare of leaves. It was magical and made her feel strangely small and insignificant at the same time.
It seemed hard to believe that this breath-taking landscape was a few hours’ drive from the bustling streets of Glasgow or Edinburgh. Stranger still to think that right now Helen was miles away, heading towards Chile, where she was hoping to visit a lighthouse there as part of a series of paintings she was working on. She wondered what the world would look like from the top of a lighthouse near Santiago. There was so much out there, and she’d missed so much of it. All those years married to Michael where she’d done his bidding and kept herself small and invisible, locked away her hopes and dreams in favour of keeping things easy and peaceful at home. And now here she was, on top of the world, with – she took a breath in, trying to steady herself – absolutely no idea what she was doing, where she was going or what the rest of her life held.
A wave of vertigo caught her unawares and her legs threatened to give way. She turned and headed back, round and round the spiral staircase and down to the safety of terra firma. Then, trying to gather herself, she grabbed four of the plastic boxes, stacking them one on top of the other, and headed back to the cottage. The wind whipped her hair across her face as she pushed open the handle with her elbow, the boxes toppling out of her arms and clattering onto the wooden floor in front of her.
‘Sorry, darling,’ she said to a curious Eliza, who’d been roused from her slumber by the commotion.
Content that they weren’t being burgled, Eliza trotted off back to the warmth of the rug in front of the wood stove. Meg dumped the crates on the floor of the kitchen and had a sudden flash of realisation. Once she got to work, she had a habit of ploughing on until her stomach made it very clear that it meant business. This was Applemore, not Heatherby, and she couldn’t call for a pizza delivery or drive to the 24-hour garage to pick up some snacks. If she was going to be practical, she should probably get herself to the shop and pick up some provisions.
She checked the fridge – to Meg’s credit, there was a brand-new bottle of milk, some orange juice and a block of reasonable looking cheese. The cupboards yielded some pasta, a half-used bottle of olive oil, and an assortment of herbs and spices.
Her phone beeped on the kitchen table.
So sorry,said a message from Helen. Just remembered in my panic to get packed I completely forgot to go to the supermarket and get some bits and pieces.
You read my mind, replied Meg. Don’t worry, am on my way out now to explore and grab some dinner.
There was a message from her old neighbour, Janey, too. The new people had been spotted, she announced, and didn’t look half as nice as Meg.
She popped her head into the sitting room and was rewarded with some lazy wags from a corgi who clearly had no desire to get in the car and visit the Applemore shops.
‘Shall I leave you here?’
Eliza didn’t reply, but rolled onto her back and gave a heavy sigh.
‘I’ll take that as a yes. Don’t get up to any mischief while I’m out.’
The sky was still a peculiar mix, with heavy purple clouds threatening to overpower the thin blue sky and pale spring sunlight. Maybe she’d walk into the village another time, but for now she was grabbing the keys to Helen’s little Ford Fiesta and driving to the supermarket.