‘Briony calls her sometimes, but when I checked your mum’s phone, there was no number stored in it for Briony. I’m not sure if it’s because Donna suspected we might try and contact her, so she’s deleted it, or whether she never had the number stored in her phone in the first place.’
‘Knowing how determined Mum can be when she makes up her mind about something, I suppose none of that shouldsurprise us.’ Bex was trying to keep a lid on her frustration, but she wanted to scream and Ken must have picked up on her irritation, misinterpreting it as being directed at him, rather than the situation.
‘I know I should probably be reaching out to Briony myself, but I’m terrified that your mum might be so angry that she pushes me away and the thought of not being there for her when she needs me most is unbearable. It’s wrong of me to ask you to put yourself in that position, but I don’t know what else to do.’
‘It’s okay.’ Bex wrapped her arms around him and realised he was shaking, despite the warmth of the kitchen. Stepping back, she looked him in the eyes. ‘I won’t even tell Mum that I got Briony’s email address from you.’
‘I would say it doesn’t matter, but if your mum follows through with her threat…’ Ken’s voice faltered and part of Bex wanted to thrust the piece of paper back into his hand and tell him that contacting Briony was his responsibility. Even if Bex tried to save her mum by contacting her estranged sister, she could still end up losing her, but she knew that Ken was right and that she had to be the one to take the hit.
‘It’ll be worth it as long as Mum gets the treatment she needs.’ Looking down at the email address Ken had handed her, Bex realised her hand was shaking too. So much was depending on this, and if she had to sacrifice her relationship with her mother to save her, it was a price worth paying. It would hurt her far more than she could put into words, but she’d survived unimaginable pain before, and she could do it again. She had to face the prospect of inviting Briony back into her life and all she could do was pray that her sister wouldn’t let her down all over again.
6
Bex tried to summon up the enthusiasm to choose the Easter eggs she needed for the hunt she would be hosting at the farm. She usually loved this time of year, but with the official opening of the campsite just around the corner, reviewers already testing it out, and everything that was going on with her mum, she could do without another event to organise right now. Her parents still hosted a small egg hunt at their house every Easter, a tradition carried over from when she and Briony were young, but when Bex and Matt had started their family, they’d wanted to mark the holiday in their own way too. The boys would have happily taken part in ten Easter egg hunts if they got the chance and they’d always seemed delighted that both their parents and grandparents went to so much effort. The egg hunt at the farm was something Bex had looked forward to every year since Henry was a toddler and he’d wandered around the garden outside the farmhouse, earnestly searching for eggs from the ‘Easter Bundy’, as he’d called him, inadvertently making their Easter visitor sound very threatening. Despite the name mix-up, Matt had taken on the role with gusto, wearing a costume Bex had ordered online.The two of them hadn’t been able to stop laughing at their little boy giving the Easter Bunny the name of a serial killer and Matt had joked he’d be able to wear the same costume at Halloween. Bex had been excited at the thought of so many milestone moments, high days and holidays ahead of them, making their own family traditions along the way. The arrival of the Easter Bunny on the farm had been the first of them.
Their annual Easter egg hunt had grown over the years, as had their family. By the time they had all three boys, the Easter egg hunt had begun to include some of Henry’s friends, and then later Ollie and Tom’s too. These days it had become a pretty big event with up to thirty children getting involved. The other parents were always happy to pitch in and contribute to providing the eggs, but this year it was going to be bigger than ever. Tristan and Bex had decided having an Easter-themed event on the farm would help promote the campsite. It might be mostly local children attending as the paying guests would start arriving after Easter weekend, but it would provide a lot of content for their social media pages, which no doubt many of the parents would want to share, and it all helped to spread the word about Mordros Farm Campsite. It had all seemed like such a good idea at the time, but now Bex wished she could forget about Easter altogether. The only way she wanted to spend her time and energy was on tracking down Briony.
Right now, Bex was at the cash and carry in Newquay, dragging a flatbed shopping trolley behind her, like a prisoner hauling a huge ball and chain in their wake, and it felt every bit as exhausting.
‘Come on, Bex, pull yourself together and just bloody well get on with it.’ She said the words out loud, earning herself a sideways glance from a man whose trolley was already stacked high with boxes of crisps and her stomach rumbled in response. Shehadn’t eaten anything yet today, and she’d barely touched her dinner the night before either. She just couldn’t focus on anything the way she normally would. Bex hadn’t felt like this in years, not since… No, she wasn’t going to think about Liam. She hadn’t allowed him to take up space in her head for over a decade and a half, and she wasn’t about to start now. If she was going to have to face Briony again, she didn’t need the spectre of her ex-fiancé looming large as well.
Seeing Briony would be hard enough. Bex had long since moved on; she was happy now: she had a husband she adored, three gorgeous boys and a life she loved. Except for the part about her mother’s cancer, it was about as close to perfect as anyone could possibly hope for. So the idea of seeing Briony again should be easy. She had nothing to prove any more, she wasn’t the heartbroken mess Briony and Liam had created without a second thought, but the idea still made it feel as if her blood had turned to ice in her veins, nausea swirling in her stomach whenever she thought about talking to her sister again.
She was a stranger now, but it was somehow more than that. All the things Bex had thought she knew about Briony had turned out to be wrong and she was still grieving the life they’d shared that had felt like one big fat lie after Briony and Liam’s betrayal. Every childhood memory was tainted by what had happened. All those Christmases, birthdays, days out and confidences shared between the two of them had just been an illusion and it felt like Briony had robbed her of so much more than just her useless ex-fiancé. Now, she couldn’t think about any of those memories in the same way as she should be able to do, because of their deceit.
Bex had loved Briony with every fibre of her being and her sister clearly hadn’t even loved her enough to stay away from Liam. It was an old wound now, but the signs should have beenthere for Bex. After all, Briony had spent months asking Bex if she was sure Liam was the one and suggesting that his intentions might not be genuine, eagerly passing on rumours she’d heard about his reputation. Bex had thought it was just her little sister being protective of her, the wayshe’dalways been for Briony, because she hadn’t been able to believe for a second that it might be because her sister had wanted Liam for herself. Maybe Briony had hoped she could have her cake and eat it. That if Bex had decided to end her relationship with Liam, it would have left the way clear for her to make the move she’d clearly always intended to make. Except Bex hadn’t wanted to listen, and in the end Briony had gone for it anyway.
Of course Liam had fallen for Briony; she was fun, beautiful and carefree. And in the wake of discovering Liam and her sister together, Bex had been left feeling sad, ugly and embarrassed. Despite how grateful she was now that she hadn’t married Liam, her confidence had taken the kind of beating she wasn’t sure it was ever possible to fully recover from. She’d pushed those feelings of inadequacy down so far that most of the time she forgot they were there. Now she was terrified they might reappear with a vengeance as soon as she saw Briony. But she still wanted to see her more than anything else. Not because she had any delusion that life was like a Disney movie and they’d fall into one another’s arms, with the past forgotten. No, she wanted to see Briony because her so-called sister might be the key to their mother’s recovery and she’d do anything –anything– to make that happen. She couldn’t afford to indulge her own feelings and she needed to get her act together, starting right now.
Within half an hour, Bex had completed the shopping for the Easter egg hunt, racing around like a contestant onSupermarket Sweep. She headed straight back to the farm; the Easter eggs stacked so tightly in the boot that they didn’t even move as her carbounced up and down along the track. She didn’t have time to stop for potholes. All she could think about was checking her phone to see if there was any response to the email she’d sent Briony the same day that Ken had given her the email address. It had been a short and not-so-sweet message, getting straight to the point, so that her sister wouldn’t labour under any illusion that this was some kind of olive branch.
Hello Briony,
I’m sure I’m the last person you expected to hear from, and I never thought I’d contact you either, but Mum has liver cancer. The doctors have said she’s eligible for a transplant from a live donor. It involves removing part of the donor’s liver, which over time is able to grow back. Of course I offered straight away, but she won’t hear of it because of my boys. She said she’d never forgive me if I reached out to you to tell you what’s happening, but it’s a chance I’m willing to take to avoid losing her. I hope you feel the same way and that between us we can persuade her that she has to let one of us be the donor. If the tumours she has grows any bigger, she’ll no longer be eligible for a transplant, so time is of the essence. Please contact me at the email address above as soon as you can, or on the mobile number below.
Thanks, Rebecca.
She hadn’t been able to force herself to sign the email off as Bex. She almost never used the name Rebecca, except for things like doctor’s appointments. If anyone ever used the name it didn’t even feel as if they were talking to her, and somehow that made it the perfect way of signing off her message to Briony. The formality and unfamiliarity of the name kept a distance between them. She’d made it clear in the message that, whateverhappened, they’d never recapture their old closeness. This was just a means to an end, not some kind of new beginning.
It had been three days now and there was still no response, but Ken had told her about how remote some of the places Briony stayed in could be and she had no idea how good the mobile satellite Ken had described actually was. He’d also said that the last time he and Donna had met up with Briony, she’d been staying on a tiny Scottish island called North Uist that Bex had never even heard of. They’d flown up to Scotland, hired a car and then taken two separate ferry crossings to reach where she was staying. When Bex had made a snarky remark about Briony needing to make the effort to meet them somewhere closer to home, Ken had placed his arm on her shoulder and explained in that gentle tone of his that visiting Briony always took them somewhere new and that they treated each visit like an adventure. They didn’t want exotic holidays, just the chance to see their other daughter. He’d gone on to explain that they’d been the ones to suggest they meet Briony in places she thought they might like to see. After all, it wasn’t like she’d ever agree to come back to Cornwall, so they might as well get to travel somewhere new and exciting.
Bex hadn’t been able to argue with that, but it still rankled that her parents always danced to Briony’s tune, travelling the length of the country for the chance to spend a week with her. The fact that she was still living a nomadic lifestyle in her mid-thirties with no responsibilities also irked Bex. She knew it was unreasonable to feel that way, because it wasn’t the kind of lifestyle she’d ever wanted, but it just seemed typical of Briony to somehow exist outside the rules everyone else lived by. She probably only checked her emails once in a blue moon too, but the waiting was killing Bex. What terrified her most was that it might be killing their mother’s chances of a cure too.
Passing by the entrance to the campsite field, she glanced to the right. Tristan had told her that Holly Day’s campervan was the dark green van conversion, with yellow daisies painted on the side and it would have been difficult to miss. She glimpsed the woman standing outside it too. She had her dark hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun, huge oversized sunglasses, and casual dungarees that still somehow showed off the fact that she had an amazing figure. She looked exactly how Bex might have expected an Instagram influencer celebrating the joys of van life to look, and she just hoped Holly would give them a favourable review. The thought was almost as fleeting as the glance Bex had shot in her direction though. She had far more important things to think about and she only had enough space in her head for so many worries. Right now, all of them were focused on making sure her mum got well, regardless of what other trouble that might end up inviting into her life.
Holly watched Tristan cross the paddock towards her and she let go of a long sigh. When he knocked on the door, as she knew he inevitably would, she could always hide or pretend to be out. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d done something similar.
The last thing she’d intended was to become an ‘influencer’. Documenting the various alternative lifestyles she had tried out over the years had been her way of processing how she felt about them and, if she was honest, it had helped combat some of the loneliness she often felt. What she hadn’t expected, as her number of followers had taken off, first slowly and then with a pace she could never have imagined, was that she would end up with some pretty hardcore ‘fans’; a word she hated attributing to herself even more than the terminfluencer. How could she havefans? Holly had been just an ordinary woman in her twenties when she’d started out. She didn’t have any special talents, more was the pity. All she’d done was embrace some alternative lifestyles and pick up some handy skills along the way, which had enabled her to do most of Woody’s conversion by herself.
Holly would have loved to have been an artist, or writer, or some other form of creative, as so many others in the van life community seemed to be. She met other people who lived in vans partly because they were touring the country as performers or singers. When she was younger, she’d harboured an ambition to be an actress, but it had just been a phase most kids went through in one form or another, not a serious dream that she put any real effort into pursuing once she’d left home. She supposed she was an actress of sorts now though. The image she presented online wasn’t nearly as carefully curated as many of the other social media influencers and she was unafraid of showing some aspects of van life that others shied away from, because a degree of realism was important to her, but her videos definitely only showed one side of whoshewas. Her followers didn’t know the real Holly, they only thought they did. She kept her working life and her personal life quite separate in many ways, and there was a lot that remained hidden on both sides of the equation.
Her parents had no interest in the online world and had no idea how successful she was, and the truth was, she was glad they thought social media was a waste of time, because she didn’t want them following her accounts or hearing the things she shared with the people who did. They thought she made an income in online marketing, they just didn’t know that she was the product. Her followers were just as ignorant about the details of her personal life. She didn’t mention her parents, or any of the complex relationships within her family. She’d spoken more generally about how family breakdown could contribute toembracing the kind of alternative lifestyle that made van life appealing, but none of her followers knew her background. That didn’t stop them wanting to meet her and she’d been recognised far more frequently than she’d ever imagined possible. It was why she’d ended up hiding in plain sight, under the duvet in her van, on more occasions than she wanted to recall, pretending not to be there when someone who recognised her came to visit, uninvited. She didn’t mind having a chat if she was out and about with Merlin, her faithful companion for the past ten years, but she didn’t want people turning up at her home. And that’s what Woody was, her home, every bit as much as if he’d been made of bricks and mortar. He was also her safe haven, and she didn’t want strangers thinking they had the right to just turn up and hammer on her door until she let them in.
Tristan was different though. He wasn’t a stranger labouring under the false illusion that they were friends just because he’d watched her videos online. He’d invited her to his farm because he knew that if she endorsed the campsite, it could be a game-changer for his new business. He’d been totally upfront about that in his messages to her. There’d been no uncomfortable sycophancy, or beating around the bush. He’d asked her for a review in exchange for staying as long as she wanted to for free and it had been as simple as that. It was why she’d known she was going to like him before they even met, and it was also why she wasn’t going to leap under her duvet now and pretend to be out, even though she wasn’t really in the mood for talking. Not even to Tristan.
‘Hi, I saw you crossing the field.’ Holly smiled as she pulled open the door, before he even got the chance to knock. She found herself thinking how attractive that disarming smile of his was, changing not just the shape of his mouth but his eyes too. Even if the lower half of his face had been completely covered, she’dhave been able to tell that he was smiling, and she’d have suspected it was something that came easily to him. That made her admire and envy him all at the same time.
‘I’m going down into Port Agnes and I just thought to myself, I wonder if Holly might like to come along?’ He laughed then, shaking his head. ‘It’s alright I don’t actually talk to myself out loud.’
