by Kate Hewitt
“Shall we get started?” she asked gently, and he nodded.
They worked in quiet companionship for about half an hour; Laura located sheets for Sam’s bed and made it up while he organised all his books—mainly Horrible Histories and Minecraft annuals—in the wooden bookshelf Tim had built for him a couple of years ago. There were reminders of her husband everywhere, which was, Laura had come to realise, both a good and bad thing. She didn’t want to forget, of course she didn’t, and yet it could hurt so much to remember.
“This is a good start, isn’t it?” she told Sam, dusting her hands on her jeans, just as the doorbell rang.
“Who’s that?” Sam asked and Laura shook her head. The only person she’d met in Wychwood-on-Lea was the caretaker Jace, and then only briefly.
Feeling cautious for some reason, she headed downstairs, Perry lumbering up to follow her to the door with an expectant sniff.
“You must be the new tenant!” The woman at the door let out an embarrassed laugh. “I mean, obviously you are. I saw you guys move in. But don’t worry, I’m not a stalker.” Another laugh. “Goodness, I sound mad, don’t I? My name’s Lindy.”
She stuck out a hand, which Laura shook with an uncertain smile. “Laura Neale.”
Lindy nodded enthusiastically; she seemed that sort of person, practically pulsing with energy. About six feet tall with long, tumbling golden-brown hair, she definitely seemed larger than life. Next to her Laura felt more diminished than usual. She suspected she should invite her in, perhaps for a cup of tea, but with Maggie still pouting upstairs and boxes all around, the thought exhausted her. She had not been very good at all about socialising since Tim’s death.
“Sorry,” she said while Lindy kept looking at her expectantly. “I’d invite you in, but we’re in the middle of unpacking.”
“Oh no, don’t worry about that,” Lindy said quickly, although Laura sensed her flicker of disappointment and felt worse for it. “I just wanted to say hi. And bring you these.” She thrust a plastic container towards her. “Chocolate chip cookies. You’re not allergic?”
“No, no, we’re not. Thank you.” Quite suddenly, Laura felt as if she could cry. She hadn’t expected such kindness from a stranger, and it touched her almost unbearably. “Thank you,” she said again, and then revealingly, sniffed.
“It’s no problem. Moving can be so hard, can’t it?” Lindy gave her a look of sympathy, and Laura wondered if she somehow knew about Tim. She hadn’t told anyone in Wychwood that she was widowed—not the head teacher of the primary school where Sam would be attending, or the one of the comp in Burford where Maggie would. She knew she would have to eventually, but she didn’t want either of them to be marked by tragedy from day one. They didn’t want it, either.
As for anyone else…the only other person she’d met in Wychwood-on-Lea was Jace Tucker, and she certainly hadn’t told him.
She knew she would have to tell people here eventually—of course she would—but sometimes it was nice not to have to live every moment under that heavy knowledge and its ensuing expectation.
“Yes, I suppose it is a challenge,” she replied, managing a smile as she hugged the container of cookies to her chest. “Thank you for these. They look lovely. Proper American-style cookies.”
“That’s how I like them.” Lindy gave her an uncertain smile, as if wanting to say more, or perhaps still wanting Laura to invite her in, but she couldn’t, not when the cottage was a jumble of boxes and Maggie was still in a mood, and…she just couldn’t.
“Thanks,” she said yet again. “We’ll have to have you round soon, when we’re all sorted.” Lindy nodded, and then, with a semi-apologetic smile, Laura closed the door.
“Who was that?” Sam asked as he clattered down the stairs. “And what are you holding?”
“That was our neighbour,” Laura told him as she turned around. “And cookies. Do you want one?” She pried off the lid of the container, and with greedy gladness Sam stuck his hand in. Laura blinked back the last of her tears.
Moving was hard, especially when you still felt raw and wounded with grief, and you weren’t sure you’d done the right thing in the first place. Did she even want to be closer to Tim’s parents? Sometimes she wasn’t sure.
And what about leaving Woodbridge and all their friends, not that they’d had that many. They’d only lived there for three years, not quite long enough to feel truly settled, but long enough for friends from the last place they’d lived—outside London—to more or less forget you.
Not that everyone had actually forgotten them, of course, Laura reminded herself, not wanting to marinate in self-pity, as tempting as it sometimes seemed. Just the casual friends and school gate acquaintances, the people you rubbed along with well enough without realising quite how much you depended on them on a day-to-day basis. But they still had friends. Of course they did. Just not all that many. But enough. Chantal, for one, who had been, and continued to be, an absolute lifesaver.
Stop with the self-pity.
Laura took a deep breath and then reached for a cookie. She took a big bite; it was chewy and delicious and the gooey chocolate soothed her soul enough to smile at Sam and mean it. “So,” she asked, “shall we have a takeaway for supper tonight?”
“Yes, please!” Sam crowed enthusiastically, and Laura finished her cookie, dusting the crumbs from her fingers.
“Let me see what restaurants I can find on my phone.” Never mind that Maggie was still sulking upstairs, or everything was still unpacked, or Perry was whining by her feet, agitated again by this strange turn of events. It was going to be okay, she told herself. Eventually. She’d make sure of it.
Chapter Two
“You’re going to have a great day.”
Sam let out a beleaguered sigh as he looked at her with impatience mixed with a pity that belied his years. “Stop saying that, Mum.”
“But you are,” she insisted. They were walking up the high street towards the little school at the top of the village for Sam’s first day, the first day of winter term after the Christmas holidays. “I’ve heard it’s a lovely school. Everyone’s really, really friendly.”
“You heard that from one person.”
Jace’s wife, Ava, who was eight months pregnant and waddling like a duck yet still managed to look both sexy and beautiful, had stopped by yesterday to say hello. Although they were obviously unpacked by that point, Laura still hadn’t been able to invite her in. Her throat had closed on the words and she’d just smiled instead, while Ava told her she just lived ‘down the path, through the wood, in a cottage that looks like it’s inhabited by elves.’
Ava had also assured her that everyone in the whole village was positively brimming with goodwill and eager to be her friend, so Laura felt as if she’d stumbled onto the set of Postman Pat rather than a normal English village. Ava had proclaimed that the school was lovely, although her son William was only two and a half and hadn’t started yet.
“But Harriet’s got a boy in Year Six—Will, just like my William. He’s full of energy, I will admit, but underneath he’s got a good heart.” She made a laughing face to show Laura what she meant, and she’d smiled a bit tightly in return because Sam had had a bellyful of energetic boys with good hearts. He’d been bullied by several of them at Woodbridge.
She hadn’t said that, of course; she’d just thanked Ava and then said she still had bits and bobs to put away but she’d be sure to have her and Jace over soon, and then, just as with Lindy, she’d closed the door more or less in her face.
Sooner or late people were going to think she was rude, but Laura wasn’t sure what she could do about that. She knew she simply wasn’t up to making more than the obligatory chitchat; she wasn’t ready for the quid-pro-quo exchanging of life stories that comprised that first crucial get-to-know-you conversation.
Back in Woodbridge, people knowing about Tim had felt awful, because no one had known what to do or say. Their attempts at sympathy had been clumsy, if well me
ant, and after a while everyone had just avoided them instead, like Maggie’s fake friends. Grief seemed as if it were catching.
People not knowing about Tim, Laura was coming to realise, was in its own way, just as bad. It felt like the enormous elephant in every room, except only she knew it was there. Perhaps she should have reconsidered the whole moving thing, but too late now. Obviously.
“And Ava said the Year Six teacher was a really cool guy,” Laura continued, determined to sell Wychwood Village Primary to Sam even though he hadn’t complained about anything so far. It had been Maggie who had offered a litany of discontent—the uniform for the comp was ‘hideous,’ never mind that Laura had had to spend over a hundred quid on it all. Her GCSE subject choices ‘sucked,’ never mind that they were the normal ones for Year Nine. The village was boring, even though Maggie hadn’t actually explored it yet.
Laura and Sam had taken Perry on a walk through the wood, skirting the elvish-looking cottage where Ava and Jace lived, and gazing at the manor house where Lord and Lady Stokeley resided from afar. Apparently they were lovely too, according to Ava, but Laura had yet to have so much as a glimpse of them, which was fine by her. She’d met enough people for the moment. She still needed to recover.
They’d reached the gates of the primary, joining the steady stream of pupils and parents who were heading into the neat little schoolyard. Laura kept her head down, not wanting to meet anyone’s eye, but soon enough she realised no one was looking at her anyway.
It was the first day back after the Christmas holidays, and everyone was jabbering excitedly about trips abroad and presents and family dos, and not paying any attention to them at all—a prospect that should have only brought relief, but managed to cause a little contrary sting of hurt, as well. So much for everyone in the village brimming with friendliness. Laura practically felt invisible, which was what she wanted, and yet…
She didn’t, not really. As she and Sam stood off by themselves among all the happy clusters she felt a lonely sweep of sorrow rush through her. Back in Woodbridge, she would have had a few other mums to have a natter with. No one she’d call a best friend, admittedly, but people she could chat to easily enough, go for a coffee with on occasion. Here there was no one. She caught the eye of the mum of a girl who looked about eight or so and tried for a smile, but the woman’s gaze skated over her without so much as an upward twitch of her lips.
Chantal had warned her that people in the Cotswolds could be a bit snobby. “All those Londoners deciding they want a page out of Country Living, thinking a Land Rover and an Aga turn you into a farmer.”
Laura had laughed at that, thinking her friend, who was London born and bred, a free-spirited potter teaching GCSE Art in a massive comprehensive in Wandsworth, was exaggerating. She wasn’t laughing now, but, she told herself, it was early days. It was only the first day, after all. There was plenty of time to get to know people, make friends.
The head teacher, a friendly looking man in his forties, came into the schoolyard and rang an old-fashioned brass bell, and everyone started lining up according to their year group. Laura put a hand on Sam’s shoulder, fighting an urge to wrap her arms around him and never let go.
She’d had the same urge when Maggie had left for the bus, refusing Laura’s offer to walk her to the stop on the road into the village. A nameless terror had clutched at Laura’s insides and she’d fought not to pull her prickly daughter into the biggest bear hug she’d ever had. Anything could happen to her between now and three twenty, when she’d return home. A bus accident, a bully, a mean teacher, a trip on the stairs. When had she become so afraid?
When her husband’s truck had crashed into the only tree on a straight stretch of road, she supposed. When she’d realised that life didn’t come with guarantees or promises, when anything, actually anything, could happen and, in her case, had at least once.
“All right, then. Guess it’s time to go.” Thankfully her voice didn’t wobble. Sam gave her a fleeting, uncertain smile that made Laura’s arms twitch at her sides, so desperate was she to hug him. She wouldn’t, of course. Whatever street cred Sam hoped to have as a Year Six would be completely destroyed by a cuddle from his mummy in the schoolyard.
Still, she ached with longing and worry as he took his place at the end of the queue, his backpack already sliding off his shoulder, his fringe in his face. He glanced back at her, and she managed a smile and a wave, even though her heart felt as if it were breaking in half.
Weren’t things supposed to get easier, with time? It had been a year. Almost thirteen months. And yet she still felt unbearably raw, almost as wounded as the day she’d woken up after Tim had died and she’d stared at the ceiling and thought, This is the rest of my life.
No, Laura decided as the children trooped inside the school and the parents began turning away, heading back out to the street. She wasn’t actually that bad. She had healed, a little, in increments, almost without realising it. And despite Maggie’s anger now, the three of them had had some good times over the last year.
They’d splurged on a holiday to Tenerife over the summer that had been really quite fun, even though they couldn’t actually afford it. Tim’s parents had helped, which had been incredibly kind of them, but made Laura feel uncomfortably in their debt. Without Tim as a buffer, she wasn’t quite sure where her relationship with them stood. They’d never considered her quite enough for their only son, although they’d never actually said so. Tim had always told her she was being too sensitive, and perhaps she was, but sometimes it was hard not to be.
Still, life wasn’t all gloom and doom. Things were slowly getting better, day by day. She didn’t cry on a daily basis, for example. Sometimes she even laughed. And some days slipped by without her even thinking about Tim once, which felt both good and guilt-inducing.
In any case, she told herself as she started out of the schoolyard, it was just that starting over was hard, and coming to Wychwood-on-Lea had brought all those old feelings and insecurities to the fore, so she was having to deal with them all over again now.
As she started walking back down to the village, she couldn’t help but notice how the other mums paired off happily, making plans. Half a dozen headed into a cute little café, Tea on the Lea, with gales of laughter, shedding coats and scarves as they settled themselves at a table in the window.
Laura dug her hands deeper into her pockets, the wind funnelling down the high street seeming to cut straight through her. It was hard not to feel entirely and quite miserably alone, and, impatient with herself, she tried to extinguish those treacherous flickers of self-pity.
All right, she was alone. But she knew full well she wasn’t fit for company at the moment, and anyway, she’d make friends eventually. She always had before. As she turned off the high street to the lonely, wooded road that led back to Willoughby Close, Laura decided what she needed was a cup of coffee and a chat with Chantal before she took Perry for a walk to blow the cobwebs away.
Chantal answered the video call on the second ring, as Laura curled up in the corner of the sofa by the crackling wood burner, Perry at her feet and a cup of coffee in her hands.
“Well? Got the kiddos off okay for their first day?”
“Yes, I think so, but I almost cried.”
“You didn’t, though, right?” Chantal looked alarmed. “You know that would seriously spoil Sam’s street cred.”
“I know, I know, I thought the same thing.” Laura let out a laugh. As usual she and Chantal were on the same page mentally. They’d met during freshers week at uni, and lived in London together for a couple of years after graduating—before Laura had met and married Tim.
Even after she’d had Maggie and Sam, and her life had become so much about naps, nappies, and all things infant-related, Chantal had done her best to stay connected. She was godmother to both children, and never forgot birthday and Christmas presents for them.
Determinedly single and childless, she lived for her art—and for her fri
ends. Laura wished they lived closer, but at least the Cotswolds was a bit closer to London than Woodbridge in Suffolk. “I just hope they have a good day,” she told her now, taking a sip of coffee to hide the tears that were once again threatening.
“Well, first days are always hard,” Chantal reminded her bracingly. “If they don’t have a good day, it’s not the end of the world. You don’t have to assume life there is going to be a disaster after one so-so day.”
“I know.” It was a good reminder though; Laura had had a panicky predisposition towards overreaction even before Tim had died. Since his death, her instinct to assume the worst had become finely and unfortunately honed.
“And I’m glad you’re there,” Chantal continued. “It’s only a little more than an hour by train. So when are you visiting?”
“Well, Tim’s parents have us booked in for this weekend, but maybe the next?” Maggie and Sam loved visiting Chantal’s cool flat in a converted warehouse in the funky Camden Town neighbourhood.
“How are Tim’s parents?” Chantal asked, her tone cooling slightly. Laura knew she thought they were snobby; they might have looked askance at her outfit for Maggie’s baptism—a lace minidress and purple Doc Martens. Laura didn’t think they were snobby, just traditional—and a bit reserved.
“I haven’t actually seen them since we moved,” she confessed. They’d offered to bring a takeaway over the day after they’d moved, but Laura had, rather guiltily, put them off. Tim’s parents could be lovely, but they also needed a certain amount of managing, and it took more energy than Laura had at the moment. “I did talk to them on the phone, though, and they seemed okay.”
Chantal was silent for a moment, no doubt thinking of something positive to say. “Well, hopefully they’ll be some support,” she said at last.
“That’s the idea,” Laura agreed.
“And what about you?” Chantal asked. “Any nice mums at the school gate?”