Part Two
Chapter Twenty-Seven
AS SUMMER EBBED away slowly, blessing the beginning of September with warm days and crisp skies, Anna pondered her conversations with both Brody and Gabi. Whatdidshe want her life to be like? She turned the idea over and over in her head, looking at it from every angle, but got no closer to an answer.
There was an ache beginning inside her, a yearning for something more, but when it came to nailing down specifics, she just couldn’t create a picture in her mind. And with no vision of her future to guide her, she found herself stalled.
She signed up to a few job search websites. Some of the positions listed seemed interesting, but she never quite got to the point of filling in an online application. She didn’t want to set off down the wrong path; there was no point swapping one unfulfilling job for another. Until she decided what she wanted to do next, she might as well stay put at Sundridge Plumbing and Heating.
Maybe she just wasn’t ready for that level of change? It had been almost three months since she’d been to the race track, and she couldn’t evade the feeling that since that day everything had turned upside-down, even though on the surface life seemed pretty much the same.It was as if her mind and emotions had been shaken up and jumbled about like the flakes in a snow globe, and she was still waiting for everything to settle and return to normal.
But that wasn’t an entirely bad thing. There were good signs, shoots of spring after her long emotional winter, things she’d forgotten had once been part of her life. She found herself laughing more, but also crying more, too. Sometimes, with sheer frustration, when it came to thinking about her mother-in-law.
Gayle. What was she going to do about Gayle?
Teresa kept trying to broker a truce, but Anna wasn’t ready to say sorry. She knew her behaviour had not been good, but she also knew that if she went and grovelled to Gayle, her mother-in-law would stiffly accept her apology, then refuse to take any responsibility for all the terrible things she’d done. Anna’s outburst at The Cinnamon Café hadn’t happened in a vacuum.
There were other reasons too… Anna could see now that she’d tethered herself too strongly to the past, but now she had begun to let some of these things go, she felt cast adrift.
And that was the problem with Gayle. She was still firmly camped in that dark place Anna was so desperately trying to get away from. Anna sometimes wondered if that was why she kept putting off getting in touch. It was all so new, so fresh, this feeling of freedom. Maybe she was scared of losing it, scared Gayle would suck her back into being that way too?
Her one constant in this sea of internal change was Brody. They spoke at least four or five times a week now. Despite a few further requests from Anna, they still hadn’t FaceTimed.It wasn’t that Brody had ever squashed the idea completely, more that it never seemed to come to fruition. Maybe he wasn’t very good with technology. Maybe there was something about his appearance he felt self-conscious about, who knew? She’d decided to stop pushing and let him come around to the idea at his own pace.
However, they had managed to extend their communication methods to include picture messages. Brody had sent her a picture of a rocky tor bathed in dawn light only that morning. No words – they saved those for their late-night phone calls – but while the sun was up they sent each other pictures snapped with their phones, little snippets of their daily lives.
Brody often sent her images of beautiful sunrises and sunsets, misty moors, rabbits on his lawn. Anna was having to up her photography game quite a bit to make London seem as picturesque, but she was starting to get the hang of it, especially as Gabi had shared some tips about framing and lighting.
On the walk home from work, one day in early September, she stopped, noticing the way the early evening sun was highlighting the rough sandstone bricks of a converted warehouse. She zoomed in and took an angled, almost abstract picture of an area of light and shadow, including the corner of a cast-iron window. She shared the image with Brody instantly, hoping he would see the same stark beauty in the shapes.
When she reached home and collapsed onto her sofa, she checked her messages and was rewarded with a reply – a picture of a colourful pheasant in a leafy lane. She smiled as her stomach rumbled. What was she going to have for dinner? Pasta again? Or something from the selection of ready meals stacked up in her freezer?It was all she’d had the energy to cook for… well, years now, even though, once upon a time, she’d been a keen cook.
Salsa was providing some much-needed exercise in her routine, but it occurred to her that she’d feel even less sluggish if she started paying attention to the quality of what she was putting into her body too.Make the effort, Anna. Go on.A nice homemade Thai curry would be a good start. She hadn’t had one of those in ages.
Despite the fact she was tempted to lie down on the sofa and close her eyes, she pushed herself up and walked to the small supermarket a short distance away, grabbed a few items, and then headed back home, where she began assembling and preparing ingredients. She chopped a stick of lemongrass and added it to the finely sliced shallots that were sweating gently in a pan on her hob.
Just as she added a dollop of green curry paste, her phone rang. She turned the heat down and jogged back to the living room to fetch it, wooden spatula still in her other hand. It was her mum. At leastshewanted to video call.
Her mother’s face appeared on the screen. ‘Hello, darling,’ she said, smiling.
Anna walked back to the kitchen and balanced her phone on the shelf to the left of the cooker hood so she could dump the chicken into the pan while she was talking. ‘Hi, Mum. What’s up?’
‘Nothing especially. I was just thinking about you. How are you doing?’
Anna picked up her phone and angled it to take in the pan on the hob. ‘Wish you could smell as well as see… I’m cooking a Thai dish. I’m quite excited about it, actually.’
She placed the phone back on her shelf and discovered her mother looking at her from over the top of her glasses. ‘I askedhowyou were doing. Notwhatyou were doing.’
‘Oh. You know…’ Anna turned away, reaching for some chopped lime leaves to throw into the pan. She knew the script to this bit:I’m okay, getting better slowly, taking things day by day…She opened her mouth to recite it, but then she frowned and pinned her bottom lip with her teeth for a moment. ‘Actually, Mum, I’m beginning to think I turned a corner this summer.’
‘I’m so pleased to hear that, especially after that business with Gayle on Spencer’s birthday. I must admit, I was a little worried that might set you back.’
‘Yes, even despite that. In fact, maybe because of that.’ She’d already told her mum about the visit to Brands Hatch but she began to delve into more detail, explaining just how it had shaken something loose for her. Up until that point, she hadn’t wanted to admit to her mother how much she’d been struggling.
Her mother listened carefully, and when Anna had finished, she said, ‘I’m so glad you felt you could talk to me about this, sweetheart. I wish you had sooner.’
Anna nodded as she concentrated on her cooking. ‘I know. Me too.’
‘What do you think has helped? Was there something in particular?’
