Ever since we’d met, I’d known how important her spirituality was to her. Although I didn’t really believe in all that stuff, I’d always respected the fact that she did. We could make fun of each other about a lot of things, but I left that alone. Until today, when I’d felt backed into a corner and under pressure. The worst time to suddenly go right for her biggest insecurity.
To my shame, I hid away in the back for a while, afraid to come out and face her. I was thinking about how much time she’d given me since I broke up with Richard. How she’d come to the flat with booze and snacks, covered for me at the shop, sent him away just because I asked. I’d just thrown all that back in her face. I’d taken Richard back and now she had to be wondering where she stood after basically talking shit about him with me for weeks now. Obviously, she had a right to be worried. She’d been involved in the whole mess from the start.
The thing was I didn’t really know what to say to her. I’d never taken someone back after a break-up before, let alone one as fraught as the one I’d had with Richard. I’d never even imagined I would, not until Mum told me all about what happened with Dad. That had really shifted my perspective.
The rest of the day was tense and stressful. I kept wanting to apologise but the words just wouldn’t come. I’d manage to say her name and then end up offering her a cup of tea or something so banal it made me want to curl up and die. The only respites from the awkwardness came when a customer wandered in or when we took our lunch breaks. Aside from that, we worked in a tense silence punctuated by overly polite offers of tea or comments on the work that needed doing.
The arrival of some bills did not improve things. Our first electricity bill had come in and was much higher than I’d been expecting. The cost of keeping all the yarn free of damp by having the heating on in the badly insulated shop was astronomical. I could have cried when I saw the amount. I needed to do something.
To escape the tension for a while, I dived into everything I’d been too preoccupied by the break-up to do, namely, actually trying to save my business. Looking at the optimistically misnamed ‘profit’ spreadsheet, I could see in black and red that we were spiralling towards closure. If I didn’t do something drastic, we’d be closing down before the rent was due, because we wouldn’t be able to afford insurance or to keep the lights on.
So I put a post on the local Facebook group, offering ‘to-go crochet kits’ with instructions and materials. Then I widened that to the local pages for the next five villages and two towns. I typed up instructions and tried my best to make them look cutesy, then dug the supply of brown paper carrier bags out of the storage cupboard and lined them up as if I was making packed lunches for fifty people in the break room. A ball of yarn, a basic five-millimetre hook, snippers, and a blanket needle taped to a business card. I only hoped people came to buy one.
Towards the end of the day, I got an email from Emma asking for annual leave for the next three days, finishing out the week. I felt blindsided and upset but what else could I do but approve it? I wasn’t going to force Emma to be around me. God, what were we going to do about her coven coming in for a craft session? That was going to be fraught, if it was even still happening now.
By closing time, I was miserable and still desperately wanted to apologise for my comment. But as soon as I started closing up, Emma squeaked out an excuse about trying to get home early for a delivery and left. I closed up by myself, unable to blame her for making her escape so quickly. Maybe tomorrow I could message her to say sorry and then, when she returned to work after her time off, I could bring her in some breakfast and apologise properly.
With the shop closed, I stood on the pavement and contemplated going home. Richard would be in soon and he’d said he was going to cook for me, which was nice of him. Probably his go-to of lasagne with red wine and garlic bread. He was obviously really trying to make an effort and I appreciated that. Even so, I didn’t want to go straight from the atmosphere at the shop to the flat, taking all this tension with me. It was the last thing we needed on our first day back together.
I wandered vaguely instead, trying to dispel the lump in my throat and the twist in my belly. I was thinking about what would go into arranging crochet and knitting classes at the shop and if the outlay on nibbles and drinks would be worth it, plus the extra electricity used being open for an added two hours.
The weather had turned sticky since the rain, humid and clammy. It wasn’t really great weather for a walk, much less in a long cardigan and UGGs, but I refused to give up. A bit of clean air would improve my mood, even though that air felt as if it had been recently microwaved.
It was hard to say whether I noticed I was walking towards the towpath or not. Maybe it was intentional and I was just deluding myself, or maybe it was coincidence. But I found myself walking that way anyway. The canal was its usual languid self, green and still, aside from the dimples of water bugs and the occasional commotion of ducks somewhere under the willows. A few decorations had escaped containment from the town centre and solar-powered light-up ghosts gathered under the trees. There were mini-pumpkins and gourds along the back of the benches by the path.
The further I went up the towpath, the slower I was walking. What if I met Cooper? What if I didn’t? What was it exactly that I was hoping for? I could imagine bumping into him and getting a gruff apology for his snappiness yesterday. Or he might just ignore the issue like my parents usually did. What if he was still angry at me for prying?
If I did see him, I could tell him I was back with Richard. But why would I? It wasn’t even his business – and what reaction was I even hoping for? He wouldn’t care. I was literally a stranger to him.
I just missed him. Which was crazy. We’d barely known each other a month. I didn’t even know him at all. But still I wanted to see him, to talk to him. So badly that it made my chest hurt.
All of this was on my mind as I rounded the bend in the path and looked towards the viaduct. My heart dropped and I felt for one horrible moment as if I might cry. The strength of my reaction surprised me. If I hadn’t spent the day walking on eggshells around Emma, perhaps it wouldn’t have hit me so sharply. But, as it was, when I looked upstream and saw that the peeling green boat was gone, it felt like coming home to find my front door kicked in. Like something safe and certain had been ripped away from me.
Even though it was pointless, I walked the rest of the way to the viaduct itself. The boat was gone, with nothing but a flattened patch of yellowish grass to show where the boarding plank had been. Not so much as a cigarette end to indicate that Cooper had been there at all. The thoughtful, civic-minded bastard.
What had I been expecting? A note addressed to me and weighted down with a stone? Some sort of folksy sign of goodbye, like a whittled rose or half a Charles and Diana plate, split down the middle and left for me. Matching the cup that was sitting on my bedside table, full of hair grips, making me smile whenever I saw it. No, there was nothing. Not even a note about Charles the dog or what I should do if someone did message me about him.
Standing there like a lemon was just making me feel worse. I walked back the way I’d come and sat down on the first scarred and well-scrawled bench I came across, my back to the cutesy pumpkins. I didn’t want to leave the canal entirely. That felt like giving up. Even though I knew logically that Cooper wasn’t about to come steaming upriver, having just popped to Asda in his home.
Was it my fault that he was gone? I felt my insides twisting about unpleasantly. I’d asked questions about his past and tried to get him to be vulnerable with me. Now he was gone. It was hard not to draw a line between those things and call them cause and effect. He was obviously troubled by something, trying to leave something or someone behind. I’d got in the way of that.
But then, as my panic started to recede a little, I gave myself a little shake. It was very self-involved to think that I was the sole reason Cooper might have left the area overnight. He’d seen that car after all, that was why we’d had our falling-out. That car that had been crawling down the street as if looking for something. The car that didn’t belong in Leaford, as far as I could remember.
A cold little ball of worry settled in my chest. Had whatever Cooper was trying to get away from finally caught up with him? The person in the car might have recognised him after all. It had driven in the direction of the towpath and the car park. The same way Cooper had bolted after I’d questioned him. They could have parked up and seen him rush past, then followed him to the boat.
Who was it? I’d worried he was involved in something shady – something criminal. Perhaps he’d stolen money or fled debts and that was all catching up with him here. Maybe I ought to be going to the police and letting them know that he might have been kidnapped or forced to leave?
Then again, maybe his issues were more personal than that. I had no idea if he had a wife or a child he’d run out on. What if he was just a deadbeat trying to stay off-grid to avoid spousal or child support? Someone had probably thought he was a good, safe bet, and he’d let them down. Just went to show, you couldn’t predict the future. You just had to take a chance.
I stood up and dusted my skirt off. At the end of the day, was it any of my business? Without any indication that Cooper was in real, imminent trouble, I couldn’t exactly alert the authorities. It was probably just the local busybodies that had finally moved him on and he’d left because, well… why would he stay? There was nothing to keep him in Leaford.
Nothing at all.
Chapter 23
‘Hey, you’re back late,’Richard called from the hob as he whisked cheese into a béchamel sauce. The air was full of the scents of garlic and tomatoes. I’d been right about the lasagne. Normally, it was one of my favourites, and the one indulgent thing he made, but just then the thought of eating anything made me want to cry.
‘Yeah… sorry. Things at work got a bit… complicated,’ I said, dumping my bag and cardigan on the sofa and going to sit on one of the bar stools. I propped my elbows on the counter and watched as Richard started layering up the lasagne.
