by Kate Hewitt
The bartender returned with her cider and as Anna lifted the glass, Simon raised his. “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” she said, and took a sip.
“Well?” Simon asked when she’d put the glass down. “Your verdict?”
“Refreshing and not too sweet. Thanks for the recommendation.”
“Anytime.”
They sipped in silence for a few minutes while Anna wondered whether she wanted to keep the conversation going. Would her parents have noticed her absence? Would her mother be worried? The next ten days back in Thornthwaite stretched on endlessly. Her mother would be trying to make everything as Christmassy and wonderful as possible, her father would be his affable, cheerful self... and Anna would be quietly suffering, straining to seem like each moment spent back here wasn’t costing her.
Why had she agreed to come for so long? Her mother had practically begged her, telling her that Dad had the whole week off after Christmas, and they had some news to share. What news, Anna couldn’t even imagine. Getting another dog? Buying a timeshare in Majorca?
“So what brings you to The Bell?” Simon asked. So, they were going to keep talking.
“Well...” Anna hesitated, wondering how much to share. Simon was a stranger, but a nice one, and somehow she didn’t think he’d judge her. “I had to get away,” she confessed in a split-second decision to unburden herself and tell the truth.
“Family holidays?” Simon surmised with a grimace. “They’re not always easy.”
“No.” Anna ran her finger along the rim of her glass, pensive. “But mine aren’t what you’d think. No drunken fights or snippy comments... nothing like that.”
Simon settled himself more on his stool. “What, then?”
“It’s just so hard,” Anna said in a rushed whisper. She stared at her glass, not quite able to look at him. “Everything seems so perfect on the outside—like a Sainsbury’s ad or something.”
“But underneath?” Simon prompted after a pause, his voice gentle.
“Underneath, it’s all wrong,” Anna admitted. She felt a rush of guilt at saying that much. “Not wrong, exactly, but... it’s as if we’ve papered over this huge, gaping crack and no one is ever going to acknowledge it.”
“I think plenty of families do that. It’s normal, even if it’s not right. And eventually you have to find a way to fill the crack or fall in it.”
“Yes, exactly.” Anna turned to look at him, surprised and gratified by his perception. “But the trouble is... what if you’ve already fallen in?” Until she’d said the words she hadn’t realized just how much she meant them.
Saying it out loud was like acknowledged the gaping wound in her chest that she’d pretended to ignore, staggering on and on. Acknowledging it meant it was still there, it was still serious and maybe even life-threatening, but at least she could dress it. She could see a doctor, get help. Couldn’t she?
“Is that what’s happened to you?” Simon asked. His gaze was steady and kind, without even the hint of judgment or, worse, pity.
Anna let out a long breath. “Yes, I think so.”
“And have you tried to get out?”
“I don’t think I can.” Anna let out a shaky laugh and took a sip of her drink. “I think this metaphor might have gone on a bit too long.”
“You’re undoubtedly right,” Simon agreed with an affable nod. “Most metaphors do.”
“So why are you in The Bell just four nights before Christmas?” She didn’t know if she regretted telling Simon as much as she had; it had felt weirdly freeing, confessing that much.
Maybe she should seek some kind of therapy. She’d always been afraid to, but now she wondered... although chatting for five minutes to a stranger in a bar was a far cry from lying on a sofa, spilling her secrets.
“I just moved here and I don’t know anyone,” Simon answered with a shrug. “I thought I’d try my local.”
Anna eyed his beat-up cords and button-down shirt. “I think you’ll find more congenial company at The Queen’s Sorrow.”
Simon chuckled. “You don’t think I fit in here?”
“Well, you haven’t looked at the TV screen once to check the football score, and it’s Man U playing West Ham.”
“Ah, caught out.” He shook his head in mock regret. “I’m more of a cricket man, myself.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“Are you stereotyping me?”
“No...” Anna protested, and then laughed. “Well, maybe a little bit. Let me guess. You went to Oxbridge?”
“Only for a postgraduate degree.”
“You went to boarding school.”
“Day school but, yes, it was private. All boys. Somewhat awful.”
Were they flirting? It felt a bit like it, in a very non-threatening and mild way, which was probably all she could handle. “What brought you to Thornthwaite? Do you work at Sellafield?”
Most people worked at the nuclear power station about half an hour away.
“No, different field altogether. What about you? You said you live in Manchester?”
Was he avoiding answering her questions? “Yes, I’m a legal librarian.”
“A legal librarian? I didn’t know such a thing existed.”
“That’s what most people say. I keep the research and information current for a law firm. It’s a rather solitary job, just me and my computer in a cubbyhole, more or less.”
“You like it?”
“Yes.” She liked the familiarity of it, the safety, and the consistency. But did it make her heart beat harder, in a good way? No. Not much did.
“So, Anna, about this crack you’ve fallen into,” Simon said after a moment, and she let out a bit of a groan.
“Not the metaphor again.”
“Sometimes it’s a bit easier to use metaphors.”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“But, if we’re not using metaphors, what exactly do you mean? Do you get along with your family?” He looked so genuinely concerned for her, his hazel eyes crinkled at the corners, that Anna found herself blurting out the truth.
“They think I do. They think everything is pretty much fine. I feel like I’m the only one who realizes—” She stopped abruptly, feeling she’d said too much. Simon was going to think she was a complete nutter, and maybe she was.
“Who realizes...”
Anna drained her half-pint of cider. “If I’m going to tell you anything more,” she said, “I need another drink.”
“Then let me be forward again and buy you one.” He raised an arm to flag down the bartender. “Same again?”
“Why not?”
Simon watched as Anna stiffened her shoulders and stared ahead resolutely. He didn’t want to get her drunk, but he could tell when someone needed to talk. All part of his training, not that he’d tell Anna that right now. He didn’t know quite what she meant about falling into a crack, but she was hurting and he wanted to help her. That was the whole reason he’d changed careers and moved up to the back of beyond from London. To help people. And to feel needed.
The bartender came back with Anna’s cider, and she took it with murmured thanks. She was a lovely woman, with porcelain skin, her cheeks flushed a delicate pink, and a cloud of dark hair. Her eyes were dark too, a deep navy, although it was hard to tell in the dim lighting of the pub. Perhaps they were grey. She was swathed in a parka and wellies, but she seemed slender, as if a breath of wind might blow her away and, in Cumbria, that could very well happen.
“So, you were telling me,” he prompted after she’d taken a sip. “You’re the only who realizes...”
She shot him a look that wasn’t suspicious, not exactly. “Are you a therapist or something?”
“No.” Not exactly.
He smiled, wondering if he was pushing too hard, but he was curious about her. There was something so contained and intense about her sadness, as if she kept it so tightly inside that the pressure of it was slowly killing her. He hoped that wasn’t the case.
He also hoped, in some small way, he could help. Because he knew what it was like to watch someone suffer, and feel totally helpless. He never wanted to feel that way again, ever. Which meant he might have gone into the wrong career. Simon acknowledged this point wryly as he took a sip from his own half-pint and waited for Anna to say something.
“I’m the only one who realizes that something is wrong. That everything is wrong.” She closed her eyes briefly, shaking her head. “It’s all built on a fake foundation.”
“And no one else knows that?”
“If they do, they’re not acknowledging it.” She gave him a rueful look, but Simon still saw the sadness in her eyes, like storm clouds on the horizon. “I know I’m speaking in vague riddles. The truth is, I have what everyone thinks is the perfect family. And they are amazing, in their own way. I’ve never doubted that my parents love me, or love each other, or my sisters, either. Everyone’s brilliant.” She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Except me.”
“Why aren’t you brilliant?” Simon asked gently.
With her shoulders slumped, she looked as if she was carrying the weight of the world on them.
“Everyone thinks I’m just shy,” Anna confessed in a rush. “But I’m not. It’s much more than that. That’s why I don’t come home, because I can’t take all the scrutiny, all the well-meaning questions, all the expectations.” She let out a shuddery sigh. “It’s too hard. And I start to—” She gave him an uncertain look. “I should stop now, shouldn’t I?”
“When it’s just getting interesting?” Simon answered. “You don’t have to tell me anything, Anna. But it sounds as if you need someone to talk to.”
Anna was silent for a moment. “It’s easier, talking to a stranger,” she admitted. “Someone I’ll never see again.”
“You might see me again,” Simon warned her. “I do live in Thornthwaite now.”
“Yes, but I don’t.”
“True.”
“The truth is,” Anna said in a low voice, her gaze on the scarred and sticky top of the bar, “I’m not just shy. I have... I have social anxiety. When I get in crowds of people, people I know who are asking me questions, I... I have a sort of panic attack, and I start to... I start to stammer.” She let out a whoosh of breath. “And no one knows.”
Simon was silent for a moment, considering this. “Then you’ve done a bloody good job of hiding it.”
“Yes, well.” She gave him an embarrassed smile, blinking rapidly. “Everyone just thinks I’m terribly awkward.”
“And you’d rather they think that then know you have a condition?”
“Yes, I suppose I would. A condition.” She shuddered. “That sounds so awful.”
“Plenty of people—”
“Oh, I know, I know. I’ve looked up the statistics online. I’ve even done exercises to try to stop it, but I know it’s psychological. I tell myself it’s just mind over matter, but it isn’t. At least, it doesn’t feel that way to me.”
“Did you always have it, even when you were young? Because I imagine it would be more difficult to hide as a child.”
Anna was silent for a long time, and Simon waited, not wanting to press. Her hair had swung forward to hide her face, and he had the entirely inappropriate impulse to tuck it behind her ear, skim his fingers along her cheek. He was not going to chat up a vulnerable young woman in a pub. This wasn’t about that. It couldn’t be.
“It started when I was eight,” Anna answered quietly, her eyes downcast. “When my brother Jamie died.”
“I’m sorry,” Simon said, meaning it utterly. He knew how hard grief was, a long, lonely slog, with no end point in sight. Eventually one just got used to the slogging, but sometimes they realized how tired and never-ending it was, and they wondered whether it was worth going on.
“We don’t talk about it,” Anna continued, her gaze still firmly fixed on the bar. “We talk about him. We’re not totally dysfunctional.”
“Well, you know what they say. A dysfunctional family is one with people in it.”
“Right.” She gave him the glimmer of a smile, although her expression was still haunted. “But we’ve always talked about him. We remember his birthday and we toast him at Christmas. We talk about him, his goofiness, some of the expressions he used that were so funny—” She broke off, swallowing hard, and Simon resisted the urge to touch her hand, to offer her that comfort.
“How old was he when he died?”
“Ten, two years older than me. It’s how he died that we don’t talk about. The day it happened. What I—” She stopped again and brushed at her eyes. “Sorry, you must think I’m a complete basket case.”
“No, I really don’t.” No more than he or anyone else was, anyway.
Everyone struggled. Everyone suffered. And just about everyone tried to slap a smile on it.
“Well.” Anna took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Let’s talk about something else.” She reached for her barely-touched cider and drained the glass.
“All right. How long are you back in Thornthwaite for?”
“Ten days. My father has some announcement he and Mum want to make. They’re probably going to do the coast-to-coast walk or something.” She sighed wearily. “Sorry if I sound cynical.”
“You don’t. Pragmatic, maybe.”
“Where are you from?”
“Outside London. Nameless, boring suburb.”
“You’re a long way from home, then.”
“Yes, but I wanted to go somewhere I could be more known. And I’ve always loved the Lake District. Fell walking and all that. I’m probably going to have to get a dog.”
“Dogs do seem a prerequisite here,” Anna agreed.
She looked up from her drink, her lips slightly parted, her eyes a bit glassy. She was, Simon suspected, more than a little bit drunk, and on a pint of cider.
“You know why I came out here tonight?”
“Why?”
“To get away from my sister and her boyfriend. They surprised me, when I first got home. It was hard enough just being there and then Rachel announced she was dating Dan.” Anna shook her head, her lips pursed, while a frisson of recognition went through Simon. Rachel... Dan... “I had a crush on him when I was in school,” Anna confessed with a hard, little laugh. “Stupid, schoolgirl thing, but it felt pretty massive at the time. He saw me crying once... I was bullied, in school,” she said by way of explanation. “For the whole socially awkward thing. Mum and Dad never knew. But I suppose the crush took on this importance it never really had because the truth is, I’ve never had a proper boyfriend. The truth is, I’ve barely been kissed.” She looked up at him with wide, sad eyes. “Isn’t that pathetic? I’m twenty-eight years old.”
“Not pathetic,” Simon said carefully. He had a feeling Anna was going to regret telling him all this in the morning, especially now that he had a feeling he knew who she was. “You’re just waiting for the right person.”
“I am,” she agreed, and hiccupped. “I’m just not sure he exists.”
“And I’m sure he’s out there. But it is getting a bit late. May I walk you home?”
“What? Oh, I’m fine.” She shook her head. “I might have another cider...”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Simon said as gently as he could.
Anna’s eyes widened. “Oh no, do you think I’m drunk? Am I drunk?”
“I think maybe a little,” Simon answered with a smile. “But you tell me.”
She paused, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t know. I only had two half-pints of cider, but I didn’t eat anything today except for a sandwich on the train.”
“I think,” Simon said, “the best thing for me to do is walk you home.”
“That’s not necessary—”
“I’m a gentleman. Humour me.”
With a huff, Anna slid off the stool and pushed her arms into the parka she’d slipped off at some point in the evening. Simon dropped a pound coin on the table for a tip and th
en put one hand lightly on the small of her back to steer her through the press of the drunken crowd.
“The Bell’s not that bad, actually,” she said once they were outside in the crisp, clear night.
Simon breathed in the cold air, marvelling at the beauty all around him. A sliver of moon illuminated the jagged peaks of the fells that surrounded the village on every side. In the distance, a sheep bleated, the only sound save for the rustling of the wind.
“Let’s get you home,” Simon said, and started towards the bridge that led to the church and the vicarage beyond.
Anna stopped right there on the pavement. “How do you know where I live?”
“I don’t,” Simon answered honestly, because he wasn’t sure and now was definitely not the time to explain who he was. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Anna started walking, brushing past him and starting towards the bridge. “This way,” she called back. “But you don’t have to come. I’m fine.”
Simon followed her, all the way to the lane that led to the church. Then Anna turned to him, looking soberer than she had in the pub. Perhaps the cold air had helped.
“I can take it from here. Thank you for listening, Simon.” She gave him a crooked smile. “We probably won’t see each other again.”
“I was glad to meet you, Anna.” And he decided not to tell her that they most certainly would meet again, in just a few hours. They could both cross that bridge when they came to it.
With a little wave, Anna turned and started down the lane. Simon watched until she was swallowed up in darkness, and then he waited until he heard the distant creak and click of the front door of the vicarage opening and closing. Then he turned and started back to home.
Chapter Four
Anna woke up to sunlight streaming through the window and a foul taste in her mouth. She blinked fuzzily, aware that someone was tapping on her bedroom door.