Authors: Miranda Barnes
‘Good holiday, Kirsty?’
‘Yes, thanks. I enjoyed it.’
Emma smiled. ‘You look as if you did. Doesn’t she?’ she added, turning to the office at large.
There was general support for the proposition, except from young Jason. ‘I don’t rate her tan,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘She’s been to the Lake District, Jason,’ Emma pointed out. ‘You don’t go there for a sun tan.’
‘What’s the point, then?’ Jason persisted, with a wink at Kirsty. ‘She could have stopped at home, and saved a lot of money. Pubs any good?’ he added as an afterthought.
‘The one I stayed in was very nice. Quiet, but oldy-worldy.’
‘Quiet? No decent music, then?’
‘None at all.’
‘Honestly!’ Emma interjected. ‘Is that all you want out of a holiday, Jason – sunshine, beer and music?’
‘Yeah.’ Jason thought about it a moment more before he added, ‘And girls.’
‘There weren’t any girls either,’ Kirsty said firmly, as he looked hopefully at her. ‘Just people my age – and not many of them.’
Jason pulled a face that spoke volumes.
Fortunately, Emma’s phone rang just then, as did Jason’s a moment later. Anna and David, the other members of the team, made themselves busy. So did Kirsty, still smiling from the exchanges with Jason.
They were a good bunch, she thought fondly. It was lovely to see them all again. It was nice to be back, in fact. Sort of. In a way. She sighed and looked to see what was in her in-tray.
It was a busy office. The team was part of a wholesale business that imported furniture. Rustic oak tables and chairs from France. Ornate mirrors from Italy. Fine leather upholstery from Spain. And, increasingly, shop-fs of all kinds of stuff from China.
Especially furniture, Kirsty thought wearily, as she processed yet another invoice. Already, after just a couple of hours back in the office, she felt exhausted by the torrent of paperwork. In fact, she felt as if she’d never been away.
Later, over a cup of coffee, she gathered her thoughts. She would have to do a bit of shopping at lunch-time. There was very little food in the house. But maybe she could leave it until after work? She could call at the supermarket on the way home. Perhaps have a pizza, as well? Joyce might like to join her. She could give her a ring. Find out.
Then she wondered whether to ring Craig. It seemed strange to have been back in Newcastle twenty-four hours and not to have spoken to him.
Her hand closed on the phone. She picked it up, hesitated and rang Joyce.
‘First day back, huh?’
Kirsty nodded and sipped her glass of allegedly health-giving tropical-mix fruit juice.
‘How was it?’
‘Lovely, Joyce. Super. Wonderful.’
They looked at each other and began to laugh.
‘Work, I meant!’ Joyce spluttered.
‘I know you did.’ Kirsty pulled a face. ‘Oh, the job’s fine, I suppose. And they’re a good crew I work with. I’ve been there two years now, which is as long as I’ve been anywhere. So it must be OK.’
‘But?’
‘Oh, you know how it is, Joyce. I had a lovely holiday, and I’m feeling a bit out of sorts now. I wish I was still there.’
‘The Lakes in April? What was the weather like?’
‘Not bad. There was a bit of rain.’ She hesitated and then added, ‘Quite a lot, actually.’
‘That’s why they have lakes. Did nobody tell you?’
Kirsty pulled another face. ‘It wasn’t that much, really. Besides, it was mostly on the mountains. It was usually fine when you got down in the valley.’
‘On the mountains? What on earth were you doing on the mountains?’
‘Walking, of course.’
‘You? Walking?’
‘It’s the new me,’ Kirsty said with a grin. ‘I like walking. It’s good for you, and enjoyable. You see things,’ she added vaguely. ‘Views, and such.’
‘Do you?’ Joyce looked unconvinced. ‘What does Craig think about this new enthusiasm? Does he approve?’
‘It’s nothing to do with Craig, what I do.’
‘I’ll take that as a no, then?’
Joyce waited expectantly.
‘Didn’t I just tell you?’
Joyce shook her head and looked even more expectant. She looked as if she was holding her breath.
Kirsty sighed. She hadn’t said anything to Joyce about what she and Craig had decided. Or to anyone else, for that matter. But she supposed there had to be a first time. She would have to start telling people sometime.
‘Joyce, Craig and I are not really together anymore.’
‘Oh? What, exactly, does that mean? You’ve split up?’
‘No, nothing like that. Well... It just means it’s over, Joyce. We’re still friends, but...’
‘But there’s going to be no church bells? And no little Craigs?’
Kirsty smiled reluctantly. ‘That’s about it. At least, I don’t think so. Well, there might be. It’s not as if... Oh, I don’t know, Joyce!’
Joyce squeezed her hand sympathetically. ‘You don’t sound very sure, Kirsty.’
‘Well, what can I say? Things haven’t been so good between us. Nothing dramatic. But... We’ve grown apart. We’re still friends, but that’s as much as we want to be now.’
‘So you haven’t actually finished with each other?’
‘Well...’
‘Thank Heavens for that. There’s still a chance, then?’
‘Oh, Joyce! You’re always trying to get me married off. Just because you and Alan...’
‘It’s about time, Kirsty. Don’t you think?’
She did, actually. On the way home that was what she did think about again. It was true. She wasn’t getting any younger. The infamous biological clock you heard so many people talking and writing about was ticking. She could hear it. Getting louder. And she did want a family. And a husband she loved, and who loved her. She did. But was it going to be Craig?
She wished she knew for sure. Sometimes she thought: Of course it is. Then she had these uncertainties, these questions, just as Craig seemed to have. On the other hand, they both had a lot invested in this relationship. They couldn’t just give up on it. Could they? Oh, how she wished she knew.
She met up with Joyce again a couple of evenings later, when they went for their regular swim in the YWCA pool. Joyce set off on her routine quarter-mile. Kirsty could never keep up with her, and this time felt even less inclined than usual to try. So she swam four lengths of breaststroke, two of backstroke and two of what passed with her as freestyle. Then she retired to the sauna and waited for Joyce to join her twenty minutes later.
She felt vaguely dissatisfied. Disappointed even. She should have felt so much better after her holiday, but she didn’t. In fact, she wished she could return to last week, and do the holiday all over again. She wondered how they were all getting on at Fells Inn without her, and if the mountains were still so green and the lake so blue and mysterious. Carol would still be there, of course. And Henry, presumably, if he hadn’t sold the place. Maybe Bob, too. She sighed and changed the subject.
Another consideration was her house. While she’d been away it had been possible to forget about it, but since she’d been back she had remembered. Vividly. It wanted so much doing to it. Nearly everything, in fact. And what didn’t want doing wanted replacing. Carpets, curtains, decor. Even a lot of the furniture. The trouble was she didn’t have the energy or the interest, not to mention the money. And some things, unsatisfactory though they were, she just couldn’t face doing anything about.
Then there was her parents’ house, which she had inherited a couple of years’ earlier, when her mother had passed away. She still hadn’t been able to get rid of it, or decide what else to do with it. Too many memories. She needed to move on. But she hadn’t the energy. Maybe it would be easier when she and Craig finally decided what they were going to do.
The door creaked open. Joyce appeared, looking red-faced and healthy.
‘That was good. I needed some exercise. I didn’t come last week, with you being away.’
‘Missed me, huh?’
‘I did, yes.’
They smiled at one another.
‘Alan was most put out,’ Joyce added. ‘He said it meant he couldn’t go for his usual night out with the lads. He couldn’t leave me on my own. I had to practically push him out the door. I do need at least one night a week to myself.’
‘It was good of him to feel like that,’ Kirsty suggested. ‘Especially after all these years together. You’re lucky.’
‘Lucky? Me? Having Alan cluttering up the house all the time?’
Kirsty smiled.
‘You’re right, though,’ Joyce admitted. ‘I know I am lucky.’
And Kirsty knew it was true. Sometimes she quite envied Joyce. Good husband, nice home, a job she liked on reception at the optician’s. She almost had it all. Everything you needed to be happy. If only they could have the child she and Alan both wanted and longed for, Joyce’s life really would be complete.
‘So,’ Joyce said. ‘Feeling better today? Got over the holiday blues?’
‘No, actually. Not at all.’
Joyce re-arranged herself on the wooden slats and flicked water at the hot stones. There was a hiss and a small cloud of steam puffed up towards the ceiling. ‘So?’ she said. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘Oh, Joyce! I don’t have a problem. It’s not like that.’
‘Well, what is it like?’
Kirsty leaned back against the wall and winced as the heat seared her shoulder. ‘I just feel a bit flat, that’s all. I had a lovely time in the Lakes. It was so beautiful there. Lively, too, at the inn where I stayed. And then I’ve come back to… this. A job that’s all right in some ways, but is basically pretty boring. A cold, empty house. On my own. Nothing to look forward to.’
‘Wow! That’s more than post-holiday blues, girl. That’s a whole-life crisis.’
‘No, it’s not. Don’t be silly.’
‘Well, you have a good job and a decent home, Kirsty. Your mum’s house, as well. You’re very lucky.’
‘Mum’s house is part of the problem, Joyce. I don’t know what to do with it. And I’m not thrilled about mine either. I don’t want to be there anymore. Not alone.’
‘Craig?’
‘Well, the plan was to sell the two houses and his flat, and us both to live somewhere else. I don’t know what’s going to happen now.’
Tactfully, Joyce didn’t ask again about marriage plans. Instead, she said, ‘Any plans for tonight?’
Kirsty shook her head.
‘Fancy the cinema? “Miss Potter” is supposed to be good.’
‘Is that…?’
‘It’s about the children’s author, yes. And, yes, it’s set in the Lake District,’ Joyce added with a grin.
‘That’s a lovely idea, Joyce,’ Kirsty said with enthusiasm. ‘Yes. Let’s go.’
The film was lovely, apart from Miss Potter’s publisher fiancé perishing seemingly of a bad cough before she could get him to the altar. Apart from that, it was very enjoyable. Edwardian London. Life amongst the privileged at a time when there were few warnings of what the twentieth century would bring to them and theirs.
Miss Potter did wonderfully well, too, picking herself up from one mishap after another to emerge as a phenomenally successful children’s author. Then, in full flow, but with the sadness of losing her fiancé, she took herself off to live in the Lake District, which in the film was so dreamily beautiful it made Kirsty shiver. She found herself wishing all over again that she was on holiday still.
‘What a rotten life,’ Joyce said afterwards, when they were safely ensconced in a pizza house next to the cinema. ‘Can you imagine? That big house in London, that fabulously rich family with its cotton mills in the north somewhere, servants everywhere, social whirls... And what does she do? She takes herself off to this half-derelict farmhouse, damp and riddled with woodworm probably, and sits writing stories about bunny rabbits. And gets even richer!’
‘Terrible,’ Kirsty agreed.
‘I mean,’ Joyce added, ‘how was she ever going to meet an eligible young man in a place like that?’
‘Not easily. But she did, didn’t she? Eventually.’
‘Well …. Not really. He was only her childhood sweetheart, wasn’t he? He wasn’t really “eligible”, not in the sense her mother meant. I mean, he worked for a living!’
‘The times were different, Joyce. They’d changed. She no longer had to marry a man-about-town with good prospects. She was free at last to marry a countryman – someone just like her at heart.’
‘That’s all very well, but I don’t know what her mother must have thought. Anyway, all those gloomy mountains – and all that rain all the time.’
Joyce stopped and stared with suspicion at Kirsty, who was laughing and shaking her head. ‘You’re going to tell me again how lovely it is there, aren’t you?’
Kirsty nodded.
‘You should go back,’ Joyce said with a shudder of disgust. ‘Have another holiday. Why don’t you?’
‘I just might,’ Kirsty said, still laughing.
Joyce stared hard at her. ‘Now wait a minute,’ she said slowly. ‘You gave me to understand the inn was a bit of a dump, and it never stopped raining? So why would you even consider going there again?’
‘Well...’
‘So what, actually, is the attraction, Kirsty? No, don’t tell me.’ She frowned with thought. ‘Craig isn’t going. So...’ After a moment her eyes lit up. ‘You’ve met someone else, haven’t you?’ she breathed.
‘Of course not!’ Kirsty laughed now with embarrassment. ‘Don’t be so silly, Joyce.’
‘No?’ Joyce was disappointed. ‘Was there no-one else there at all?’
‘Men, you mean? Well, there was Henry, the owner, who’s nice enough but basically pretty useless. Too young for me anyway. And there was one male guest.’
‘Ah! Tell me more.’
Kirsty went on to tell her about Bob and his strange ways.
Joyce heard her out and then sighed. ‘Not terribly promising, is he? Mind you... Maybe you gave up too soon?’ She frowned and added, ‘He might be interesting, if you got to know him better. But you wouldn’t do that, would you? That’s you all over. Can’t be bothered.’
‘Come on, Joyce. I wasn’t looking for a man. I’ve still got Craig, remember? Well, sort of.’
‘Oh, yes. I remember.’ Joyce sighed again. ‘But maybe if you did go back, this Bob might be there again. What do you think?’
‘I have no idea.’ Kirsty began to laugh. ‘Stop interfering in my life, Joyce Henderson. Just stop it!’
But the conversation with Joyce wouldn’t leave her mind. That night in bed she found herself turning it over in her mind until far too late. Not the bit about Bob, of course. That was far too silly. Joyce had just been teasing her, as usual. It was all the stuff about the Lake District and Beatrix Potter that ran around her head half the night.
She could see the green mountain-sides in her mind’s eye. And the lake, as a squall hit the far shore. The sound of the brooks tinkling into the streams and then the river, before tumbling into the lake. She could hear sheep bleating in the distance and the rush of the wind in the sycamores near Fells Inn. And the clatter of pots being dropped in the kitchen. Oh, yes! That, as well. Poor Carol.
She smiled as she snuggled deeper under her quilt. Why shouldn’t she go back there sometime soon? No reason at all. She still had some holiday to take. She’d go. She would. Apart from anything else, she had unfinished business with Goat Fell. She wanted to stand on the summit. Maybe she would do it on a day when Bob could see her. That would impress him. He probably wouldn’t like it, though, someone else sharing his mountain top.
One fantasy led to another. Soon she was thinking of Fells Inn again, and how she could improve it, given the chance. She would make it more welcoming, for a start. One way would be to do some landscaping around the building. Native shrubs and small trees. Flowers in tubs in summer. Climbing shrubs on the front wall. Roses, probably. Spring bulbs around the edge of the car park.
She wondered briefly what they would all think of it. Henry would be gone by then, of course. So he wouldn’t care less. Carol would like it, though. And Bob? Consumed with curiosity. That’s what he’d be!
She chuckled aloud. Soon afterwards, finally, she fell asleep.
***
The next day was difficult, all the way through. She woke up with a headache. Not enough sleep, she supposed.
Then e-mails, faxes and phone calls ran her off her feet from the moment she arrived in the office. French tables and chairs, in oak, had not arrived at the store that had ordered them. Instead they had been delivered to some company in Southport that now wanted to know why. French lorry driver who couldn’t read English very well, or was in a hurry to get home, was her best guess. Or a Polish lorry driver who wasn’t any better. It was sheer luck that the stuff had reached England at all.
Then Philip at the warehouse wasn’t very happy about Chinese mirrors that had been cracked in transit. The insurance company wasn’t either. Pay-bills, in Accounts Department, wanted to know if they should pay for them yet or hang on until the insurance claim was sorted.
The morning raced by. Craig rang but she had no time for him. Yes, she would have a meal with him the next evening. Yes, they had things to discuss. She couldn’t think what but she agreed, just to get him off the phone.
After lunch, she wished she had not eaten lunch. Her stomach was in turmoil. By mid-afternoon she wondered if she was coming down with something. By five she was sure of it. By seven she was shivering at home under an extra quilt, feeling as if her head was going to explode. Her ears ached, and her teeth. She was cold. Or was she warm? She couldn’t tell. All she knew was that she had a right dose of something not very nice.
She was off work three days. Then, still feeling semi-wretched, she dragged herself back and got on with it.
Somehow she coped. She managed. She did what had to be done, and began to look forward to feeling well again. But it didn’t happen.
The next week she saw her doctor.
‘Rest, my dear,’ Dr. Gregg said confidently in his lovely Shetland accent. ‘That’s all you need.’
She stared at him, reluctant to accept so simple a cure.
‘The virus has done its best, or its worst,’ he explained. ‘It can do no more. You’re over it. I can see how poorly you feel still, but recovery takes time.’
She nodded. ‘I do feel poorly. You’re right. I was hoping for some antibiotics, or something,’ she added vaguely.
‘They wouldn’t help, I’m afraid. And we don’t give them out unless they would. Some people,’ he added with a sympathetic smile, ‘would have us give them out like sweeties.’
She knew what he meant. She’d read about that. Giving antibiotics out when they couldn’t do any good just reduced their effectiveness when they could be useful.
‘Any chance of you getting away for a few days?’ Dr. Gregg asked.
‘Where? What do you mean?’
‘Personally, I would always recommend Shetland, but you might prefer somewhere a little warmer and less windy at this time of year.’
‘A holiday, you mean?’
He nodded and smiled. ‘It’s worth thinking about.’
On the way home she did think about it. And when she arrived home she checked her diary and her bank balance. Then she smiled. There was only one place she wanted to go.