‘Well, isn’t that just perfect?’ I muttered to myself, gripping my phone so hard that the plastic case creaked.
I decided not to respond to the message, mostly because, if I started to, I might accidentally type something like ‘Hope you drown in a water hazard’. Which felt unnecessarily mean, even if he had cheated on me.
Instead I checked the time and wondered if around four in the afternoon on a Sunday was an acceptable time to drop by someone’s boat to check in. I decided, on reflection, that I couldn’t wait until my lunch break tomorrow to see if Cooper really was back and if he was still angry with me. Besides, I had the Stitch and Witch to prepare for then.
It felt rude to arrive empty-handed so, as I drove through town, I stopped at the petrol station to get a gift. It was the only place still open at that time on a Sunday – that’s small towns for you. I paid an extortionate price for a carrot cake and a tin of fancy dog food, then went and parked up by the towpath. Sitting in my car, I took a deep breath and told myself the worst thing that could happen was that Cooper would tell me to get lost.
As I was walking up the towpath, a thin rain started to fall. I pulled my cut-off denim jacket around me and wished I’d worn something waterproof. Or that had a hood. I had a blanket-style scarf around my neck and, after a few minutes, when the rain worsened, I took it off and wrapped it over my head to keep the worst of it off.
A haze rose off the canal as the rain hit it and the ducks were diving and splashing in the unexpected shower. A few frogs, disguised as mottled autumn leaves, hopped across the path and I skirted the squashy yellow slugs that were crawling out over the slick tarmac path.
The boat was back, now moored a little further from the viaduct, under some dripping willows. It looked reassuringly the same as it had last time I’d seen it – peeling paint, rust-spotted gilt lettering and the same planters, though these were now empty of dead weeds. Smoke was drifting from the chimney, adding the aroma of wood smoke to that of rain-soaked greenery and damp leaves.
And I felt sure. So I followed that feeling.
I hurried the last few metres, glad I was wearing more sensible biker boots today. Reaching the boat, I stepped over onto it and rapped on the door. From inside I heard the skittering of nails on wood and a low woof as Charlie came to the door. He started to whine and paw at the door itself and I drummed my fingers on the wood.
‘It’s okay, Charlie, it’s only me.’
He woofed again – happily this time – and rushed off. I waited for Cooper to come to the door. Waited and waited, with rain trickling down my back and my feet growing cold in my boots. I knocked again but this time Charlie didn’t come running. Almost as if he’d been shut somewhere, like the kitchen.
Cooper was on board – he wasn’t stupid or thoughtless, he wouldn’t leave the fire going with the dog inside while he went out. He’d taken the dog with him to Asda on a dressing-gown cord, for God’s sake. No, he was in there and he was avoiding me. Well, there was my answer then. He didn’t want to see me. My feelings had led me astray again, just as they had with the struggling shop. Obviously, I couldn’t trust my own judgement.
Feeling stupid and naïve all over again, I left the cake and dog food by the door, then stepped off the boat and back onto the footpath. I stood there a moment, looking at The Lady Di, at the smoke from the chimney and the sliver of light coming through the curtains in the living area. At the far end I thought I saw the kitchen blinds twitch, but I could have been imagining it.
The rain began to peter out as I walked back to the car, dejected. I got back into the driver’s seat in my damp clothes and took the scarf from my head. Well, that was that then. I knew where I stood now with Cooper. Which was nowhere near him.
But where did that leave me with Richard? It wasn’t that I didn’t want to end one relationship without another in the offing. But I was questioning my judgement now. My certainty was leading me astray, so how could I trust myself to make a good decision about Richard? What if I ended up alone and miserable and cursing myself for dumping him?
Knowing he wasn’t going to be at home anyway, I was reluctant to head back to the flat to sit in silence and worry about what I was going to say to him. I couldn’t go back to Emma’s or to Mum and Dad. Cooper didn’t want to see me and it was Sunday, so even the café in town was closed. I sighed and looked up at the tiny crochet plant dangling from my mirror.
I knew where I wanted to go.
Aunt Lou’s cottage was on the outskirts of Leaford, near a piece of woodland where we’d once picked blackberries and nettles to make dyes and blackberry tarts. It was down a winding lane and, as I drove down it, I didn’t meet anyone coming the other way. It was very quiet down there, and the driveway outside the cottage was empty. So much the better. I didn’t want to run into the new tenants and have to explain myself.
The cottage was rendered white and had a gabled roof of red clay tiles. The front still had Aunt Lou’s roses climbing up it, the sweetest pink and yellow marbled flowers I’d ever smelled. Of course, right now there were no flowers, but I could almost smell them in the damp air anyway. The memories were so strong I felt tears prickling in my eyes.
Beside the hedgerow on the left-hand side of the property, there was a narrow public footpath. I followed it around to the rear of the cottage and looked back at the house from this new angle. The new people had put out patio furniture, and through the French doors, I could see that they were in the process of repainting the living room a deep forest green. Aunt Lou had kept it the same shade of toast brown as long as I could remember.
It didn’t make me sad to see the house change. Wherever Lou was now, she wasn’t in that house. Neither was she hanging around the little Leaford graveyard where her headstone was. I didn’t sense her in either of those places, but sometimes I thought I could feel her with me. I’d only told Emma about it, and she’d nodded sagely and said that was to be expected. Lou wasn’t tied to a stone or a house – but she would always be a part of me.
So why was I out here in the wet, poking around behind the cottage? I suppose I just wanted to go back to a time when I knew for certain that someone had my back, whatever I decided. Something I’d lost since losing her. Emma was the closest thing I had to that, but it was different with a friend. Lou was like my second mother. Older and wiser and so kind and patient with me. I wanted her back so badly. She’d have known exactly what to do.
I followed the footpath off into the woods, picking my way around the worst puddles of mud. The woods out there were the site of so many of my favourite memories with Lou, from teddy-bear picnics and fairy hunts to building camps, animal watching and foraging. We’d even camped out there a few times, though the land didn’t belong to Lou. Just laid our sleeping bags out and watched the stars – sprinting back to the house in fits of giggles at two in the morning when it started to rain that one time. I could see Lou in my head, the bells on her long skirt tinkling as she ran over the springy moss barefoot.
I found one of our camps in the far corner of the woods. The area wasn’t very accessible and I had to climb a steep bank and slide down the other side to reach it. That was probably why it hadn’t been disturbed much. Though other people had definitely used it in the years since we’d built it. There were a few rusty cans of beer and chunks of charred wood amongst the weeds from a long-extinguished fire. But the camp was still standing. We’d built it like a wigwam, triangular and made of logs and branches leaning against each other. The gaps were plugged with moss which had grown since we’d packed it in, making the whole structure green and velvety on the outside. A bird had built a nest on top of it and white feathers were scattered over the surrounding clumps of dead bluebells. Emma would have called them angel feathers. I was just relieved to find part of my history with Lou still standing.
As I gathered the cans together to take away with me, as she would have done, it started to rain again. Droplets rattled through the autumn leaves, striking the dirt heavily. The air was thick with an approaching storm and the temperature was plummeting. I ducked into the den itself and found that someone had left a log round in there as a seat. Perched on it, I looked out at the rain as it lashed down through the trees. Leaves fell with it and the undergrowth rustled with the ferocity of the rain.
It was surprisingly cosy, sitting there in the little hideout Lou and I had built together. Mostly Lou, to be honest, as I must have only been thirteen or so when we built it. The age was showing, some of the logs were rotting away to powder, breaking away under my nails, but those on the inside were holding up well.
I took my phone out and used the torch in the gloom. Many, many people had decorated the inside of the camp with their initials, swear words and various graffiti marks, all carved into the logs or Sharpied on. I had to really look for it, but I managed to find the first piece of graffiti that had graced its walls. Lou had written our names and the year of construction in silver marker pen, her swirly handwriting standing out under a layer of other messages. I touched the faded silver of her name and wished she was there for me to talk to. But, even as I wished it, I realised something. Possibly the thing that had drawn me all the way out here on a wet Sunday.
I’d been doing Lou a disservice over the past few weeks. My aunt, who I loved so much, whose cottage had felt like home. The woman who’d supported my dreams and shown me what it was to be good at something. She’d given me my entire identity and yet, ever since Richard cheated on me, I’d been telling myself that ending up like Lou was the worst fate I could imagine.
Tears started to flow then. I was horrified at how I’d acted, the things I’d thought about that life in the privacy of my own head. I hadn’t really connected them to Lou until I found myself sitting in the camp she’d built with me. Who the hell was I to say that her life had been empty and sad without a husband or children of her own? If anyone else had said it of her, I’d have stamped on their toes.
Aunt Lou had lived in a house so warm and full of love that it had become my escape. She’d had so many hobbies and skills and had shared them with me, because they’d brought her so much joy. She was never left sitting alone and sad, because she had so many friends, so many clubs and societies. Like the one where she’d met Gail.
