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‘Well. Weddings are always traumatic, aren’t they?’
He blinked. ‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously.’ I gave a bleak laugh. ‘Today’s my wedding day. This is my wedding dress. And my fetching wedding wellies. It was on a farm, we had this whole quirky hayride-themed thing.’
‘Jesus, Kitty! That’s… God.’ He shook his head in shock. ‘So, what, you’re running away from home?’
‘That’s about the size of it, yeah.’
‘But you’ll have to go back eventually, won’t you? You can’t run forever.’
I glared darkly at a little Fiat bobbing along ahead of us. ‘I’m never going back. Trust me on that.’
‘What happened?’
‘Please don’t ask,’ I said, my voice strangled. ‘I mean, thank you. I am grateful for the lift and I know you’re just trying to be nice and everything, but I really can’t. Not now.’
‘But you’ve come away with nothing. Have you got a bank card on you? Anything?’
‘No. But I’ll be fine. Just get me to my aunty’s, please.’
‘Can I do anything to help?’
He meant it too. I could hear it in his voice, see it in the concern etched into his face. It was funny – I mean, I’d only met him an hour ago – but I couldn’t help trusting him.
And why not? Why not trust a stranger as well as anyone? He’d been kind to me. He’d sounded like he understood – and what’s more, like he cared – when I’d told him what I was running from. He’d even managed to make me laugh a few times, on what was without competition the single most miserable day of my life. On the other hand, I’d known Ethan for ten years when he’d solemnly promised to love and cherish me till death, and he hadn’t even been able to make it to the end of the reception without a metaphorical knee to the groin.
My world was so different, suddenly. I wouldn’t be sleeping next to Ethan tonight, as I had done for the best part of a decade. Wouldn’t be feeling his safe, treacherous arms around me. Wouldn’t be going back to the house we’d shared. If I had my way, I’d never set eyes on either house or Ethan again. How was it possible my life could change so drastically in just a few short hours?
‘That bastard,’ I muttered to myself. Every time I thought about Ethan, the shock and disgust hit me afresh.
Jack blinked. ‘Pardon?’
‘Sorry,’ I said, with an apologetic grimace. ‘Just thinking out loud.’
‘So can I help? Whatever I can do, Kitty.’
‘Yeah.’ I mustered a smile. ‘You can talk about something completely different the rest of the way. Something fun. Something… not about me. Please.’
‘That’s what you need?’
‘I need to keep my mind off it till I’m alone, or I might go insane. Just talk to me, Jack.’
‘Here then. Something that’ll make you smile.’ He made a clicking noise and in the mirror I saw Sandy’s ears prick up. ‘You in the mood for a performance, girl?’ he called out.
Sandy didn’t answer – because dogs can’t talk, obviously – but Jack seemed to take her silence as a yes. He fired up the CD player and skipped to the third track.
I raised one eyebrow. ‘The Neighbours theme?’
‘Yeah. She’s a funny dog, this is one of the only songs she’ll perform to. Right, Sand, after three.’
He counted her in and I laughed as the two of them performed an impromptu duet for me, Jack on vocals and Sandy on hound-dog backing.
Neighbours…
Hooooowl!
Everybody needs good neighbours…
Owoooool!
With a little understanding…
Owowohowoool!
You can find the perfect frieeeend…
When they’d finished, Jack grinned at me.
‘So? Reckon we’ve got a shot at Britain’s Got Talent?’
I smiled. ‘Wouldn’t hold your breath. Still, impressive. Can she sing anything else?’
‘She quite likes Radiohead, but she only gets that on her birthday. I’m not a fan.’
We sat in silence a while, listening to the music. White Lace and Promises by The Carpenters came on next, which for my benefit Jack quickly skipped over, then some Tony Bennett. P!nk, Green Day, a bit of Paul Simon…
I nodded to the CD player. ‘That’s some eclectic music taste you’ve got going on.’
‘Not mine really. Someone I once knew made me this mixtape – well, mix-CD.’ He shot a curious glance my way. ‘How old are you anyway?’
‘Twenty-six. Why?’
‘You know what a mixtape is?’
‘Yeah. I saw one once in a museum, sandwiched between a dial-up modem and a copy of The Breakfast Club on Betamax.’
‘Funny.’
‘How old are you then?’ I asked, looking him up and down. I’d guessed he was a few years older than me, but I was finding it hard to put my finger on just how many.
‘Twenty-one.’
‘That’s a whopping fib.’
‘Okay, twenty-one and a half.’
I flashed him a smile. ‘You’re an odd bloke. Have you always lived like this, just going from one place to the next?’
‘No. But I live like this now.’
‘Fun?’
He shrugged. ‘Bit lonely, but it’s how I like things. I can’t stand to feel trapped.’ He reached over to squeeze my elbow. ‘Keep your eyes open. One of the most spectacular views on the planet coming up just around this bend.’
I’d seen it a hundred times, but it still had the power to punch the breath right out of me. We turned the camper round a corner, and it hit me. The most beautiful stretch of water in the Lakes.
On that cloudless early May evening, Wastwater looked like it had come straight from a kiddy’s paintbox: cobalt blue and glistening. Beyond it rose the distinctive peaks of Great Gable and its brothers – Scafell and the other one I could never remember the name of, though my dad had told me enough times when I was little. They were still dusted on top with a sugaring of late snow.
‘Incredible, isn’t it?’ I said to Jack in a hushed voice.
‘I know.’ He glanced at me. ‘Makes all our petty human problems seem not so bad, eh?’
It did a bit. This was the worst day of my life, the day everything I’d worked for and invested in had come crashing down around me. But something about the awesome natural wonders looming ahead reminded me, deep in my belly, that life was still worth the living. Just as long as there could be this in it.
‘Oh, can you wind your window down?’ I asked Jack. There was something I needed to do.
‘Um, okay,’ he said, looking puzzled.
When he’d done as I asked, I slid the spanking new wedding ring Ethan had given me just hours earlier off my finger, along with my engagement ring, leaned over Jack and chucked them as hard as I could in the direction of the lake.
‘Something shiny for the mermaids,’ I said with a shaky smile.
I gave Jack Aunty Julia’s address in Wasdale Head, and a quarter of an hour later we were at the door of her little whitewashed cottage. Just the sight of it filled me with relief. The feeling of being utterly alone in the world gradually subsided as I ran my gaze over the familiar climbing briers around the door.
‘Are you sure you’ll be okay, Kitty?’ Jack asked.
‘I’ll be okay. Aunty Julia’ll look after me.’
‘Here.’ He took out his wallet and passed me a note – £50.
I shook my head. ‘I can’t take that.’
‘Please. Just in case you need it. You can pay me back when you’re all sorted again.’
‘How? You haven’t even got an address.’
‘The universe will sort it out. These things have ways of settling themselves.’
‘I can’t, Jack, really. You’ve done enough for me.’
‘I insist. And I’m refusing to take it back, so… ner.’ He poked his tongue out at me. I couldn’t help smiling.
‘Thank you,’ I said, squeezing his hand. ‘For everything.’
I got out, then stood following the campervan with my eyes until it was just a tangerine speck in the distance. Finally, it disappeared and I was alone again.
Chapter 3 (#ue6f429e3-3d8c-5e0b-b594-8af9a731feee)
Aunty Julia was my dad’s sister, the closest relative I had outside Elden. Since I was a little girl, when Dad and I had visited regularly to fish in the lake, I’d thought of the little whitewashed cottage and my aunty’s smiling presence as things that meant safety. It had always felt more like home than the stark, minimalist innards of my mum’s house.
I still made the trip up whenever I could and Aunty Julia, who had no kids of her own, always welcomed me with child-like excitement. Whether she’d do the same today, I wasn’t sure.
As I knocked at the door, a vivid picture of little me wading in the shallows of Wastwater with my jeans rolled to the knee, clutching a jam jar full of minnows while Dad did the grown-up fishing and Aunty Julia laid out a picnic on the bank, popped up in my mind. It made me smile in spite of everything. The fishing trips were my happiest memories, although since losing Dad they often came with a tear served on the side.
I waited impatiently for Aunty Julia to let me in. Even though I was a good hundred miles from Butterfield Farm where, if I was lucky, my family and friends were still enjoying a wedding reception they hadn’t noticed was now Kittyless, I felt paranoid being out in the open air, ultra-conspicuous in my daft bloody ballgown.
‘Hello, can I – oh my goodness!’ Aunty Julia said when she answered my knock, her eyes widening. ‘Kitty, look at you! What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Hiya.’ I bent over her wheelchair to give her a kiss.
‘Is Ethan with you? I don’t understand, Kitty. Why aren’t you at the reception?’
‘Can I come in before we get into all that?’
‘Yes,’ she said, blinking. ‘Yes, of course, my love. Come through to the front room.’
I followed her in and took a seat on the sofa.
‘How did you get here, dear? Where’s Ethan? How will you get back?’ She didn’t seem to know which question to fire at me first.
‘Ethan’s at the reception. I got here in an orange campervan with an Irish children’s author and his pregnant karaoke-singing dog. And I’m not going back.’
‘What do you mean, you’re not going back?’
My stomach gave a growl, its way of reminding me that even fugitives needed to eat. I hadn’t had a bite since pre-wedding nerves had kicked in to hurl yesterday’s lunch down the loo the evening before. I’d been feeling pretty sick all day, first with nerves and then the shock I’d got at the reception, and my energy levels were drained.
‘Have you got any biscuits, Aunty J? Or a ham sandwich or something? I’m starved.’
‘Yes.’ She recovered herself slightly. ‘Yes, yes, of course. I’ll make us some tea and see what I have in.’
She wheeled herself to the specially adapted open-plan kitchen, coming back ten minutes later with a plate of chocolate digestives, some finger sandwiches and a steaming mug of tea each. I tucked in ravenously.
‘Don’t wolf it down like that, Kitty. You’ll make yourself sick.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, gulping down a sandwich. ‘Not eaten for twenty-four hours.’
She scanned my crumpled clothes and tangled hair with concern. ‘No offence, dear, but you look like you’ve fallen out of a bird’s nest. What on earth have you been doing with yourself?’
I felt a wave of nausea as I gagged on the last bite of sandwich, but I forced it down.
‘I’ve been hitch-hiking,’ I said. ‘Bit of an experience. Still, one thing I can cross off my bucket list, eh?’
‘Don’t joke, Kitty. This is serious.’
‘You’ve got no idea,’ I said through a mouthful of digestive.
‘What did you mean when you said you weren’t going home?’
