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Karin nodded.
Despite her underlying vulnerability, Mel knew that Karin could also be headstrong when she wanted to be. But at least she had given her something to think about.
Karin pushed her handbag onto her shoulder, emitting a kind of schoolgirl squeal as she ran her nails across her teeth to show both her fear and excitement. ‘Wish me luck,’ she said.
Mel thought she had gone, but then Karin rushed back in again to say: ‘Forgot to mention it, Mel. I’ve transferred five thousand pounds into your account today. To cover rent, bills, all my arrears. Plus a little bit extra to say thank you.’
‘Aw, Karin. That’s very generous of you.’
‘I know it’s more than I owe, but it’s the least I can do.’
‘You didn’t have to do that. But thank you.’ Mel gave her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Now off you go.’
Karin smiled, blowing her a kiss in return.
‘And remember to enjoy yourself,’ Mel shouted.
She waited to hear the front door close then poured herself a large glass of wine. Not long after sitting down to relax, she heard Will padding about in the kitchen, probably snacking on toast and jam. Thinking of her promise to Karin, she returned to the kitchen and offered him some wine, remembering that he didn’t drink, and told him that she would make pasta in a little while.
Will gave her one of his looks that shivered down her spine then went back upstairs.
4 (#uf5a91d18-0759-5d5a-b83f-16c62b9ec757)
Karin (#uf5a91d18-0759-5d5a-b83f-16c62b9ec757)
The Friday night queues out of Leeds had died down, although there was still a weekend frenzy about the way cars jerked and swerved across the baking tarmac. It was 7.15, the evening warm and sultry. Even the buildings looked too hot, the bricks of the older ones as well as the glassier newer ones straining to stand up tall.
Crossing the city always prompted memories of when she had first arrived here. Back then all she was interested in was huddling in shop doorways and under bridges down by the canal or the River Aire. That secret part of her life, which Aaron hadn’t known anything about. Not at first. He was under the impression that Karin had answered an advert for a room to rent. Mel had preserved her secret, thankfully, knowing how ashamed Karin was about this aspect of her life. But in the end, Karin had told Aaron herself because there were so many other things she would never be able to share with him and this was one thing she could.
He didn’t even know about Louie.
Karin shifted in the passenger seat as her temperature began to rise. Yet at the same time a chill dug into her skin as the rawness of that winter, after she had run away, returned. A pop-up tent and warm sleeping bag were all that she had wished for on a daily basis. That or some money for a hostel. Apart from her phone, the bundle of letters and the clothes she was wearing, her only possessions had been a hairbrush and a worn-out toothbrush. Karin had left in a hurry, not wanting to make it look like she was leaving at all.
Afraid to go. Afraid of what might happen if she stayed.
It was her dad who always said that her hair was her best feature, so even on the streets she didn’t want it to go into matted dreadlocks, because she knew her dad wouldn’t like that. He was already dead by then, but it still mattered. Brushing her hair obsessively nine or ten times a day would often attract attention. Karin made sure she was drunk and past caring, in case the attention wasn’t the best kind, but she had Will as her protector and he kept her safe.
Whether her mother had realized it or not – more likely an oversight on her part – she had still been paying for Karin’s phone contract back then. However, unless Karin could get into a hostel to charge it up, it had been of limited use and she’d had to guard it with her life. Staring out of the car window at the passing trees, Aaron by her side at the wheel, she could, even now, remember the excitement of seeing all those messages appearing, and how quickly it would turn to guilt.
Always Louie:
Where have you gone? Please come back, let’s talk.
Never anything from her mother.
Karin had carried the bundle of letters stuffed into the waistband of her knickers. She knew it was risky hanging onto them, because they could do real damage in the wrong hands, but without them she had nothing.
She was no one.
Despite having Will, trusted friend and loyal companion, those days on the streets were the loneliest of all. She often wondered, had Birgitta been aware of her living rough, might she have given her the lump sum sooner, instead of making her wait until she turned twenty-two? Unlikely though, knowing her mother. Because the deal was that if Karin didn’t finish her schooling and go to university, the money would be stopped, with no more until today. What little Karin had left from her hotel earnings, she had given to Louie, leaving herself with just enough for the train fare to Leeds, plus a small amount besides until she found her feet again. But Karin had got drunk on the train on the way over, and then she was robbed.
Karin was pretty sure it wouldn’t have made the slightest bit of difference if she had known. Birgitta was a Swedish torpedo. That’s what her dad used to call her. He said that no one could ever stop her or change her direction. He certainly couldn’t, and Karin couldn’t either. Even as a child, Karin wondered why her parents were together; her dad was always hovering and quivering in the background. Without doubt, this sharp-pointed focus was the reason for her mother’s success as a world-class designer, but it torpedoed through everything else. Everyone else.
Karin knew it had been a mistake to start looking at those letters before setting off this evening. She had managed to ignore them until today, despite clinging to them all this time. Her own letters were wound up in that bundle too, of course. It was the bereavement counsellor’s suggestion that they write to each other after her dad died. On paper, and with stamps. So they could think about what they wanted to say to each other, before sending. Safer that way. Better than any text or email fired off in the heat of the moment. Karin had still managed to fire off, even so. And then one day all the letters were returned to her in a bulging jiffy bag, along with the words:
‘Karin,
I suggest you read back over these. I hope you have a good life, but I no longer want to be a part of it, nor you a part of mine.
Mamma (no longer).
Remember, if you come anywhere near me again, try to contact me in any way, I shall go straight to the police. Your accusation has ruined my life.
scribbled on a Svendsen business card.
Karin could recall sitting on her bed in her room at school, putting the letters in date order. ‘From Karin’. ‘From Mamma’.The word ‘love’ never came into it. Then she had tied them up and hidden them away. Since then only two people had read them.
First Louie. And then Will.
No one else ever would. Not even Mel.
Definitely not Aaron.
Throw them away, Karin.
She had bought the box when she moved in with Mel, using the date of her dad’s death as the security code. Another option would have been to use the date of her stepdad’s death, as a sort of prompt for why she shouldn’t look inside, but she decided the box alone was enough of a reminder. One of the letters was missing; she had set fire to it at school. It went up in an orange angry fireball. At a time when Karin most needed her mother’s support, she got nothing but criticism and a whole heap of deceit.
Karin didn’t blame herself for what happened. She might be sorry, but it wasn’t all her fault.
‘You okay?’
She felt Aaron’s hand on her thigh. It pulled her back to the present and she managed a thin smile. Sweat was beading on her forehead. She lowered the window for a blast of 30-mile-an-hour air. It was enough to cool her. Aaron gave her a look; he preferred the air-con. But his expression also said that he was making allowances for her birthday.
Then he seemed worried. ‘Is it a headache coming on, Karin? Do you want me to pull over?’
‘No. No, I’m fine,’ she replied, smiling at his kindness. ‘Just hot, that’s all.’
They slowed for the next set of traffic lights. Aaron began to get agitated as they waited, his hands turning white from gripping the steering wheel so tightly. Karin wasn’t sure why, at first, until she realized that three young lads in their souped-up Ford Focus were making gestures at him. Intent on getting a reaction, they began shouting: ‘Come on, old fella. Give it some metal. Wouldn’t mind a ride of your daughter.’
‘Idiots,’ said Karin as their car sped away with a blast of exhaust. She could sense a part of Aaron wanted to take them on, checking his mirrors for a way through, but she managed to distract him by putting on his ‘Music To Drive For’ compilation, fast-forwarding through Travis and Coldplay. Karin patted him on the leg, because this was worse than not using the air-con, but it forced another smile out of him. It had taken her a long while to feel brave enough to do this kind of thing. Desperate to be his contemporary and not some alien from another generation, initially she felt obliged to like whatever he liked. Now that she knew him better she could relax and be herself, most of the time.
‘So where are we going?’ she asked as they approached signs for both the M62 and M1 up ahead. Aaron wouldn’t say, but when they turned onto the M621 she thought she might have an idea. ‘So is it Manchester? Chester? Oh God, if it’s the Lakes I didn’t pack any outdoorsy stuff.’
‘It’s not the Lakes,’ he said, grinning.
‘You tease-ball. I hate you.’
Aaron smiled. ‘You’ll love it,’ he said.
He was always so keen to please and surprise. But what she liked most about him was that he didn’t make her feel like she was on a runaway train, about to crash. This was a proper romance, not a teenage train wreck. Karin began to contemplate him with an intensity neither one of them would have felt comfortable with had Aaron not been driving. Either that or he was pretending not to notice. Aaron was sweet like that.
What if Mel was right about this weekend? At this precise moment she was feeling somewhere between terrified and ecstatic at the prospect of someone asking to marry her. Not just anyone. Aaron. Marriage was not something she expected would ever happen to her. Not something she had even considered for herself, something other people did. And Mel was right about it being sudden. Whirlwind. Wasn’t that the term? They had only been together a few months. So did she really need to make that final commitment yet? Karin was in no doubt that she loved Aaron, but weren’t they doing fine as they were? She had only just got her life back together.
Having abandoned her education, Karin was now doing far better than she ever imagined, with a level of responsibility she probably ought to have a string of qualifications for. The pay was poor in the charity sector, but the cause was certainly worth fighting for, and for the first time, she felt valued and needed. That wasn’t even about money. It was about hard work and a self-belief she had never had in all the years of being crushed by her mother, feeling, always, the inadequacy of her existence; the burden of living in Birgitta’s frozen shadow. It was a cruel irony that the one inferior product her mother had designed should be the one she gave birth to. Karin was never allowed to forget that, but now the real Karin had emerged. Thanks to Mel. And also to Louie. She couldn’t forget the part that Louie had played in her recovery. But it was Mel who, in the end, had got Louie off her back and she could never forget that either.
The money she had received today from her mother’s accountant would certainly change things. Almost a million pounds was going to make a huge difference to her life. It meant that she no longer had to scrounge off Mel for one thing, and she could pay her own way with Aaron too. At the moment, he picked up the tab for practically everything, but this enormous sum of money would set them on equal terms. No longer feeling like she had something to prove just because of her age. Plus Aaron had a tendency to spoil her. Take this birthday treat for instance, whatever it was, it wasn’t necessary. Karin had grown up with wealth and status and found it loveless and cold. Not that she wasn’t grateful. Scraping away at the very bottom of human existence had taught her what it was really like to be hungry and afraid. So she could fully appreciate this lifeline that she had been thrown. And to think that she had once been homeless, yet could now afford to buy a place of her own, was mind-blowing.
Karin actually wanted to tell Birgitta these things, to say thank you, but she knew that wouldn’t be possible. Her life would be over just as soon as she made contact again.
Pushing aside this regret, but with a giddiness in her stomach, Karin looked out at the dramatic Pennine sky and the outline of Manchester beginning to take shape in the distance. She thought she understood now what Mel was trying to say. This was a pivotal moment, a chance for an even better Karin to flourish, to be totally independent and self-sufficient.
A golden opportunity, and Karin did not intend to squander it.
After a few more moments of reflection, she was convinced that she had found the perfect solution. Turning to Aaron again she began to study him with the same intensity as before. What was to stop her from having her independence, but with Aaron as her husband? They could buy a place together, build a joint future, while still pursuing their own individual goals. Isn’t that what people did?
Don’t rush, take your time, don’t let him hurry you.
If she said ‘no’ or ‘not just yet’, she might lose him. And she loved him. Because Aaron didn’t make her feel like she was on that runaway train.
Even if she still was.
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