Chapter 14
FAYE
Faye loved Australia but when her dad decided he wanted to go to Dorset to be with his brother, she had started to feel more drawn to England, as if she might have unfinished business there.
She’d told herself she was merely being nostalgic and in part she was because with England came fond memories of her and Steph growing up, the family that was once all together.
Faye hadn’t been in Dorset for very long before she’d felt that same draw and it was more than nostalgia; it was a sense of belonging and peace.
And quickly she decided she would stay here for a bit longer than she’d planned.
It would give the gossips extra time to settle down before she went back to Australia.
Perhaps by then the shitstorm would be over.
And now that Margot was around it was even nicer because she had some female company.
Faye put her change of plans down to the freedom she felt, the not having to look around every corner, duck her head, hide behind a cap and sunglasses.
It was lovely to be close to her dad again too and with an open-return plane ticket she had options.
However, those options meant longer off work and so a few days ago when she’d seen a cleaner disappear into the caravan next to hers, she’d gone into the site office and offered up her services if they needed an extra hand.
They did; in fact they were short of help, and so once she showed them her British passport they were happy to put her on the casual roster.
It would be on a day-to-day basis depending on what the caravan park’s needs were, which suited her just fine.
The job didn’t pay that well at all, and it would be hard graft, but Faye didn’t mind any of that. In fact, when one of the cleaners got sick and she was given even more of the workload she relished the busyness as well as making some extra money.
As she started work that morning, she put her AirPods in and lost herself in a Lily Allen album.
She squirted cleaner into the toilet in caravan number 28, which had thankfully been left pretty tidy – not all of them were, the one she’d cleaned before this she’d reported to the site office for the dirty dishes piled not only in the sink but on the coffee table, in the bedroom and even on the ledge in the bathroom.
She gave the shower a clean until it sparkled – easy with this caravan; it was new – and moved on to do the kitchen.
She did a couple more vans and once her shift was complete she headed to her own caravan and stood beneath the shower for a while.
Her body felt fried. Hairdressing was taxing, given she was on her feet so much, but cleaning was a lot harder.
She’d scrubbed, wiped, vacuumed, cleaned windows, polished surfaces, but she’d somehow enjoyed all of it.
It had taken her head to a totally different place, and she was earning money to fund her longer stay and keep her sanity.
No gossips lurking, no reminders of a life she might have had with Brad, just a simple life she was making the most of.
She locked up the caravan behind her. Today Margot had her youngest son visiting and with Faye working part of the day she wouldn’t see her until tomorrow at the earliest. It was odd that she had come on a holiday down here really – Faye knew she was worried about Howard too but Ascot was close enough that she could’ve just come for the day or overnight.
She went over to the lock-up unit behind the caravan’s parking space and wheeled out one of the two bicycles that her uncle had told her about in a text message last night.
He said he’d quite forgotten about them until now.
She was going to knock on Bonnie’s door again, see whether she would talk to her.
It was worth a try, wasn’t it? She and Margot had tried again already but either Bonnie wasn’t coming to the door or she’d gone away.
The bike she wheeled out had to have been Auntie Clare’s as it suited Faye’s height and the saddle was too low for it to be Uncle Frank’s.
She dusted off one of the helmets that were also in the unit and set off for Driftwick Bay.
It wasn’t that far distance wise, but it was a hilly route.
She was glad of the September sunshine, the extension of summer and no sign of rain.
According to Uncle Frank, they were already on the countdown to a long, cold winter, and her dad was getting excited, talking about making sure there were enough logs for the fire in the store to keep them both going through those cold months.
Watching them together was nice but it also reminded Faye that she and Steph had once been like that, but not for a very long time.
She pumped her legs hard to get up the first hill, enjoyed coasting down the next and eventually pedalled past the sign announcing she’d arrived in Driftwick Bay.
The wind had been against her, which meant it should be behind her on the way back at least. She went part way down the hill until she saw the cycle rack on the corner of a little street just as Uncle Frank had said there would be.
Amazing how he could remember some of the most random tiny details.
She carefully cycled across to the rack on the opposite side of the road and dismounted.
She locked up her bike and looked down the side street to a little bakery, which was emitting a smell that had already convinced her she’d treat herself before she did anything else.
With cleaning and the cycling, her appetite seemed to be off the scale.
Inside the bakery she looked at all the tempting bakes in the glass-fronted cabinets.
The jolly lady, with a name badge that said Cathy, beamed a smile Faye’s way. ‘What’s it to be, my love?’
‘I’m not sure. Everything looks so amazing, it’s hard to choose.’
‘Well, you’re not from around these parts,’ the woman said in a Dorset accent much like her uncle’s. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Australia.’
‘You’re a long way from home.’
‘I am, but actually, I was born here.’
Cathy’s eyes lit up. ‘In the bay?’
‘No, but I grew up in West Lulworth.’
‘Is that right?’ She smiled. ‘And you’re back now?’
‘Just visiting.’ She retraced her steps in front of the glass cabinet before she made her mind up. ‘I’ll take one of the glazed ring doughnuts please.’
Cathy popped one into a bag. ‘You enjoy that and enjoy your visit to Dorset.’ She had another three customers milling and with a smile moved on to serving them.
Faye didn’t waste any time biting into the doughnut when she got outside, and it tasted every bit as good as she’d expected.
She deposited the bag in the bin nearby and walked down the hill.
Cleaning and spending time with her dad and her uncle had kept her busy so she hadn’t had a chance yet to nose inside the telephone box library that Howard had mentioned.
She’d told Howard about the similar initiative in Australia where they had street libraries: miniature sheds on top of a post pushed into the ground in front yards.
They were there for people to take a book and leave a book.
It was always such an adventure, finding new titles, wondering who had read the story before and what effect it had had on them compared to her.
Faye believed that everyone read stories differently, that our minds processed facts in a myriad of ways.
It was all part of the fun and it was why she loved hosting the book club, because the discussions gave you more than the book had already delivered.
Sometimes she’d reread a book just to see whether she could experience it in a way another person had.
She opened the door to the telephone box which was, just as Howard said, filled with books.
She rooted around in her bag. She had just finished reading a paperback, one of the few that had been left at the caravan park and she’d been allowed to take it from the site office.
She put it in an available space and perused the choices.
There was a biography about a cricketer, another one for a celebrity, a couple of colourful teenage books, a few Harry Potters, some historical novels, some romance books, and on the lowest shelf she found a book she’d wanted to read for a while, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, but for some reason had never got around to it. Perfect.
She popped it in her bag, closed the door to the telephone box library behind her, and then she crossed the road to make her way back up the hill towards Bonnie’s cottage.
But she didn’t get far because as she passed the bookshop, expecting it to still be closed with the same sign on the door, she noticed it was open, and more than that, people were inside.
She hadn’t looked this way as she went down the hill; she’d been too focused on safely traversing the street to get to the bike rack and a bus had been blocking that side of the road ahead.
How had it suddenly reopened? Whatever the reason, this had to be a good thing, didn’t it?
Howard had said that most of his allocated state pension probably went on books.
When he’d said that, other members had chimed in with their encouragement to keep on doing what he was doing.
He was such a lovely gentleman, not as old as her grandad who had passed away a couple of years ago, but he’d always reminded Faye of a grandparent, the way he treated others and talked to them, the way he listened, how he was never afraid to share his own opinions either.