A new member appeared at that moment and asked if she could have a private word with Veronica.
‘Of course!’ Veronica rose from her chair and patted my shoulder. ‘Thanks for listening, Yvonne. I’ll think about what you said.’
As she led the new member away, I watched her visibly switch from vulnerable to professional mode. It struck me that we were only a fortnight into January but, already this year, Paulette, Milly and Veronica had shared something incredibly personal with me and had seemed to appreciate and value my support. To think I’d once been concerned about being the outsider in an established friendship group. Now I felt like I was a key member who they all felt comfortable talking to about real things, real feelings, real life. They were all kind and friendly and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I could trust them with my truth. I just needed to find the right moment and Cake & Craft Club wasn’t it – far too many people around – but the right time would present itself and, when it did, I was ready to share.
I resumed working on my journal, focusing on theplaces to seesection which wasn’t quite as personal as some of the others. While I’d been in Keswick on Monday, I’d picked up a couple of travel brochures for European city breaks so I flicked to the pages covering Venice and started cutting round the images.
‘Planning a trip to Venice?’ Laughlin slipped into the chair Veronica had vacated.
I really liked Laughlin – found his quiet presence soothing – but I didn’t feel as though I knew him as well as the others. This was an ideal opportunity to change that.
‘It’s on myplaces to seelist for this year,’ I said. ‘Have you been?’
‘Yes. When I retired, Noreen and I spent a couple of years exploring Europe. We’d travel for a month or two, come home for a bit, travel again.’
‘I bet that was incredible.’
‘It really was. We visited some places two or three times to capture the changing seasons or to experience festivals. Venice was beautiful in May but we also went in October and caught theacqua alta.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked, unfamiliar with the phrase.
‘It translates as “high water”. It’s the exceptionally high tides in the Adriatic – a natural phenomenon which causes parts of Venice to flood. We thought it’d be interesting to see it like that too.’
‘Do you have any photos?’
‘Stacks of them.’ He took his phone out of his waistcoat pocket and scrolled for a moment before passing it to me and talking me through the various locations. It was fascinating seeing the popular tourist spots with people wading through the water or crossing raised plinths.
‘This is my favourite photo,’ he said.
I smiled at the image of Laughlin wearing wellington boots and standing in a flooded St Mark’s Square in front of the Basilica, carrying Noreen in a piggyback. Her feet were clad in bright yellow wellies and the pair of them looked as though they were laughing so much that Laughlin might drop her in the water at any moment.
‘I can see why. It’s a fantastic shot. Gosh, Laughlin, I bet you have some wonderful memories of your travels.’
He sat back in his chair, his smile speaking volumes. ‘So many. Exploring Europe like we did was the best experience I’ve ever had. We were worried about all that time away from home, not to mention the expense, but we decided to throw caution to the wind and I’m so glad we did because, the year after we got back, Noreen’s health started deteriorating and we’d never have been able to do all the things we did. Valuable life lesson in not putting off till tomorrow what can be done today.’
‘You obviously loved Venice,’ I said, ‘but where else did you love?’
I didn’t get much journalling done for the rest of the session, but I did have the most incredible virtual tour of Europe through Laughlin’s photos and holiday stories and I could happily have listened for hours more. I’d been to some of the places he mentioned so I shared my own happy memories and had such a lovely afternoon. Although Laughlin hadn’t confided in me about anything that might be bothering him, I felt a much closer connection to him through the memories he’d shared. For the briefest moment, I wondered about Laughlin as potential for a future romance but I dismissed the idea quickly. There wasn’t a spark there. I was getting older brother vibes from him and I was happy to keep it that way.
Back at home a little later, I opened up my journal to my Venice page, reflecting on Laughlin’s words –not putting off till tomorrow what can be done today. I’d added Venice as an unfulfilled bucket list entry with no real conviction around making it happen. I was the woman who hadn’t even known that The Fox and Rabbit was under new ownership because I could never have entertained the idea of going in and dining alone. I was the woman who’d only ventured into The White Willow because I’d heard they offered a takeaway service. I was the woman who’d taken five years to walk around the village on my own. I ran my fingers over a sticker with the words ‘Adventure starts here’ sitting on top of a suitcase. Could I? A turn around the village was hardly on the same scale as boarding a plane and holidaying alone but did being single mean I could never travel again? I flicked back a few pages to the three things I was going to start doing this year.
‘Living,’ I muttered. ‘I’m not doing that now, am I?’ I flicked onto the next page –loving. ‘If I met someone, I wouldn’t have to travel alone.’
But that took me back to the conversation in the pub with Milly when she’d talked about having no idea how to meet someone new. The same applied to me. Where would I even begin to meet a new man? And the voice in my head said,But you don’t want to meet anewman. You want Will. You always have.I ran my hands through my hair with a sigh. I’d already tried searching for Will and it was like looking for a needle in a haystack and, even if I had managed to find him, the likelihood of him being willing to even speak to me after what I did was miniscule. As for being single and still interested… I needed to forget about Will and focus on new love. There was somebody out there for me. There had to be.
15
Seeing Milly with her Castlerigg Stone Circle cross-stitch kit had inspired me. I used to love cross stitching and hadn’t done any for years but, riffling through my crate of kits, nothing called to me. They were all beautiful designs but, having derived so much pleasure from creating a patchwork quilt that meant something to Paulette, I wondered if I could create a special cross stitch for one of the others. What about Laughlin? There were websites where customers could upload a photograph and have it converted into a pattern for a cross stitch and I could do that with the photo of him and Noreen during theacqua alta. I hadn’t wanted to spoil the surprise by asking Laughlin for the photo but we were friends on Facebook and it didn’t take much scrolling to find it there so I’d ordered the pattern.
I was busy working on it on Friday morning when Trevor announced, ‘Visitor! Come in!’
‘Have you got a minute?’ Paulette asked when I answered the door.
‘I’ve got all day. Would you like a cuppa?’
‘I’d love a strong coffee.’
I led Paulette into the lounge and introduced her to Trevor, leaving them to get acquainted while I made the drinks.
