Chapter Thirty-Six
Rowan
One year later
Shepherding twenty women onto a train is perhaps not in the same league as sheep-herding, and certainly many times easier than if they were children, but it is still no simple feat.
Train tickets are procured, lunches bought, and then there is the inevitable rush and stress as Suzy from Margate needs another coffee and Heather from Brighton needs to pee, but somehow there we are: racing through the barriers at Euston, my neon-pink hiking shirt and trusty ocean-blue bag leading the charge.
My phone buzzes with a text from Sophie: Good luck out there! Go get ‘em, tiger!
I laugh.
“Fuck me, I’m exhausted already,” Marnie jogs down the platform next to me, holding her side as if she’s about to fall apart.
“You don’t have to come, you know.”
“And miss Single Woman Walking’s first expedition? Absolutely bloody not.”
Single Woman Walking. I didn’t expect anything like this when I opened the account.
I didn’t really expect anything at all. All I knew when I got back to London was that something needed to change.
So I quit my job and started working in a café instead.
I found a new place to live. I forced myself to go outside.
And I started posting.
First I had one follower, and then a few more, and then they continued to flow, an avalanche of likes and comments and re-shares, as I wrote about my fear of failure, of being trapped, my depression, the dark cloud that sometimes felt like it followed me everywhere, the joys of finally stepping outside my comfort zone.
I went on more walks and posted more videos: my tent being blown away, crying in the rain, limping with agony, singing in the sun.
Always wearing my bright clothes. Never representing anything less than the truth.
It wasn’t glamorous, but that wasn’t what the women who followed me wanted.
They wanted to know there was someone else out there who was struggling, and doing it anyway.
And soon after that, they wanted to come on a walk.
It turns out there are a lot of women up and down the country who feel like me. A little lost. A little alone.
A lot ready to make a change.
So when I put out the call – I was walking the WHW again, and I was ready for company – they answered in droves.
“I can’t believe they’re all here.” I stop at the train doors and look at the group gathered on the platform with awe.
Here we are: twenty women, from all ages and walks of life. A few more will join us along the way to Milngavie, and from there we’ll set off on the West Highland Way. The same way I did a year ago. But this time, none of us will be alone.
A pang passes through me at the thought of last year. The memories I made. The people I met.
One person in particular.
I put the thought away.
“Come on then!” I shout. “Shall we go for a walk?”
The group cheers, and barrels onto the train, flinging bags into bag racks, plonking bums into seats, and generally making a jolly nuisance of themselves up and down the carriage. I watch it with barely restrained glee. This is it. Everything I wanted.
Marnie gives me a leaping hug from the side. “You did this, babe. This is all you.”
Pride wells within me.
A year ago, I couldn’t have imagined myself here. A year ago, I wouldn’t have wanted to be.
But here I am.
And it feels fucking fantastic.
* * *
“Slice of cake?”
Heather from Brighton, who has a mop of red hair and impressively muscular arms, stops by our table, brandishing a flowery cake tin with what looks like a lemon loaf nestled inside.
“Did you make this, Heather?” Marnie asks.
“Too right I did. Can’t have a train ride without a lemon drizzle. Secret is a bit of ground almond in the flour. Keeps it moist.” She taps the side of her nose and winks.
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Across the aisle, two women in matching North Face fleeces – who swear they’ve never met – are sharing a tube of Fruit Pastilles, while their bespectacled companion reads them facts about the walk from the official WHW guidebook.
Behind us, another two women are deep in conversation, noses practically pressed together until one of them throws back her head, covering her nose as she makes a sound halfway between a snort and a honk.
The train is speeding across the country, London far behind us now, and excitement thrums through me as the flat, neat fields of the south turned to wilder, undulating moors.
At the next stop, another wave of people washes on and off, among them four familiar faces: Priya and Lila stagger onto the train under the weight of their bags, smiles beaming. Behind them, Joan and Bolly gingerly step up, looking a little less confident with their gear, but no less enthusiastic.
“Priya! Lila! Joan! Over here!” I jump up and wave them over. Tears are pricking my eyes now, but I don’t bother to wipe them away.
These tears are made of nothing but joy. I’ve worked hard for these tears. I have no shame in them.
I crash into Lila and Priya. “I can’t believe you came!”
“Of course we came.” Priya looks up at me seriously. “We’re your friends. That’s what friends do.”
“You’re right. That is what friends do.” Another tear slips down my smiling face.
I can’t help it. I’m brimming over.
“Does that little girl have a violin strapped to her bag?” I hear someone whisper behind us, and smile again.
“Too right she does,” I say with pride. “Priya here is a prodigy, you know. Our very own wunderkind. First violin of the National Youth Orchestra.”
“Mum!” Priya is covering her face with her hands. “Make it stop! You promised!”
“I promised that I would stop calling you a wunderkind. I have no responsibility for anyone else.” Lila catches my eye over the top of Priya’s head. “You’ll have to take it up with Rowan.”
Lila and Priya had a rough few months on their return. Lila sat her husband down and told him that she wasn’t in love with him anymore. He took it as well as anyone could, she said, but it still blew their lives apart.
The aftermath wasn’t easy. We texted most days, called every week, visited each other every month. But Lila is strong, sturdy in herself. And slowly but surely, she made it through.
“You okay?” I mouth.
She nods. There’s still a hint of sadness in her sparkling eyes. But there is a sparkle there too. “Ready for a walk!” Then she squeezes Priya’s shoulders. “Do you want to tell Rowan the good news, kiddo?”
“I’m in the final.”
After she aced her audition, Priya doubled down on her playing, spending every waking hour practicing her violin. We encouraged her to enter a major European talent-finding competition, and she flew through the first two rounds with ease. There was only one left.
“Priya! That’s amazing! Why didn't you say?”
“Heard this morning.”
Behind them, Joan and Bolly have finished storing their bags and are marching up the aisle.
“Any room for a couple of bags of old bones?”
I hug them both. “Thank you for coming. Both of you. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”
“Oh, hush. Of course we’re here,” Bolly says. “Not that either of us have a clue what we’re doing. But we’re always game to try something new!”
“Besides,” Joan adds, “your mother would have had kittens if we let you do this alone.”
“But I’ve done plenty of walking alone,” I protest.
“That was before she learned how to follow you on Instagram. God bless your sister, but she doesn’t know what she’s done by teaching her. She’s been messaging me hourly ever since she saw your post.”
“Not that you’ll find her lacing up her hiking boots,” Bolly remarks.
“Oh, Bolly. You know she’s a sensitive soul.”
“Sensitive’s not quite the word I’d use— Oh! Is that a lemon drizzle?” A cake tin appears in Bolly’s hands. She brandishes it at Heather like a weapon. “Has it got ground almond in the flour?”
“What do you take me for? An amateur?” Heather draws herself up to her full height. “Of course it does. Always nice to have a fellow baker on board. And what have you brought?”
“Banana and marmite bread.”
“Banana and—”
Joan cuts me off with a hand on my arm. I close my mouth. She’s right. I can keep my opinions to myself.
We leave Bolly and her new friend to it, settling ourselves back on the other side of the carriage, as Heather opens the cake tin, muttering “Genius, bloody genius” and Bolly beams next to her, nibbling on a slice of lemon drizzle.
Marnie introduces herself to Lila and Priya, bending down and nodding seriously as Priya launches into a story.
“How are you doing, pet?” Joan asks.
I hesitate. I’m tempted to lie. To tell her everything is great. Perfect, even. Not a care in the world. But…
“I’m getting there, Aunt Joan,” I say instead.
Honestly. “Some days I feel amazing. Never better. As if I can take on the whole world. Others I want to crawl back into bed and pull the duvet over my head. But even then, even when it’s cloudy, I feel a lot surer that if I give it time, the sun will shine again. ”
“That’s all you can ask for. One day at a time.” She pats my hand. “I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I’m proud of me too. Still don’t have a plan though,” I add, confessing my secret fear: that despite all the work I’ve done, putting myself out there, forging a new life, I’m still rudderless. Adrift.
“No one has a plan! Not really. Not one that means anything. A plan is nothing more than a flimsy fence against the vagaries of life.” She winks. “Free thinkers like you and me, we go with the current.”
“Guess I’d better get swimming then,” I say with a laugh.
Joan smiles, and it is warm and wise and full of love. “Oh, love. You already are.”