When I Knew You

by KE Payne

  As Widgeon sidled up at her side, her hand automatically fell to stroke his head, her fingers raking his fur. Ash picked up her pace, eager to get home before the rain which had threatened all morning decided to break. It was pointless, she knew, thinking things over and over any more; Nat had a new life waiting for her, and it was pointless, Ash constantly looking at her phone, waiting for the call she knew would never come. Pointless expecting the invite over to Ireland she knew would never materialize.

  Ash glanced up at the brooding clouds and quickened her stride some more. She and Nat would soon be forgotten to one another again, and the sooner Ash managed to understand that, the sooner she too could move on.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The log pile that Ash had spent the last half an hour making was growing larger. Which was just as well because with each hurl of a log, the ache in her shoulder amplified. But Ash carried on, her sling tossed to one side, the pain acting as a useful distraction.

  Nat had been gone over forty-eight hours. Ash stood and extended her back, hearing a satisfying crack somewhere low down in her spine. Forty-eight hours and not a word. Not that Ash was surprised. Right now, she figured, Nat would be knee-deep in boxes and suitcases, busy getting ready to move. That’s how it was. Ash nudged a log back up against the pile with her boot. That’s how it was always going to be before they’d met up again. Nat was always going to go to Ireland, no matter what. Destiny and all that.

  Ash bent and picked up the next log, ignoring her complaining shoulder. Nat would be horrified, she thought with a wry smile. Nat would have, by now, bundled her back into her lounge, fussing and cursing Ash’s stupidity. Nat would have taken care of her. Ash looked about her. Nat would have worried. She flung the log onto the pile, then watched as it bumped its way back down, shifting a few others on the way, before coming to a rest at the base of the pile.

  “Stupid son of a…” She kicked the log, then hopped back hastily as four or five others crashed down.

  Defeated by the logs, the ache in her shoulder, and the even bigger ache in her heart, Ash decided to give up. With a click of her fingers to a patiently waiting Widgeon, she left her back garden and rounded the corner of her cottage just in time to see Gabe walking up the garden path towards her front door.

  “Morning, loveliness.” Gabe waited on the path. “Harbour master says it’s too windy to take Doris out today, so I’ve come up here to play instead.”

  “Did you tell this afternoon’s group?” Ash’s second click of her fingers finally had her dog at her side. “Can we reschedule them?”

  “All done. Panic not.” Gabe came to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “You appear to be slingless, by the way.”

  “It’s in the back garden.” Ash tossed a look over her shoulder. “It was getting in the way.”

  “Of?”

  “Nothing.” Ash opened her front door. “Coffee?” She stood to one side to let Gabe in first. “You can make it. You know you always make it much better than I do.”

  She followed Gabe to the kitchen, trying to ignore the pans and crockery she’d allowed to stack up over the past few days. While Gabe busied himself filling her coffee maker, Ash rested against her kitchen counter watching him.

  “Nat told me two weeks.” Gabe spoke without looking up.

  “Two weeks what?”

  “Keeping the sling on.” He looked over to Ash. “She wouldn’t be happy if she knew.”

  “Well, considering a, she’s not here, and b, I won’t be seeing her again,” Ash said, “I’d say it doesn’t matter.” Her shoulder gave a twinge at that moment to remind her that it did matter.

  “You’ve still not contacted her?” Gabe asked.

  Ash shook her head.

  “Even though she’s crazy about you and you’re crazy about her?” Gabe asked.

  “Gabe, this time next week she’ll be standing in an operating theatre with a scalpel in her hand not even giving me a second thought.” She looked at him. “We’ve been over this a thousand times.”

  “Well it seems a shame,” Gabe said. “All of it. You, Nat, the letters.” He snapped the lid down on the coffee maker. “And you’ve definitely lost your spark since Nat’s been gone.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Yes, Ash.” Gabe walked over to her. “You have.” He took her hands. “Why are you being so stubborn?”

  Ash opened her mouth to speak then closed it again. She had no answer to Gabe’s question.

  “You want to hear my opinion?” Gabe asked.

  “No,” Ash said, “but you’re going to give it to me anyway, aren’t you?”

  “Sure am.” Gabe smiled and squeezed her hands.

  Ash looked up at him.

  “I think it’s time you grew up,” Gabe said.

  “Thanks.” Ash stared at a point just to the left of Gabe’s shoulder.

  “You and Nat aren’t teenagers any more,” Gabe continued. “The relationship you could have now is a million miles away from the one you had at school.”

  “Do you think so?” Ash asked, looking back up at him.

  “You have to forget everything that happened years ago,” Gabe said, “and see Nat for what she is now, not what she was then.” He gestured with his hands. “Equally, you need to see what your relationship with her could be like now, rather than constantly harking back to what happened.”

  Gabe’s words made Ash feel as if she’d been struck by lightning. She knew exactly what Nat was now: the adorable, funny, beautiful woman that she always knew, even back then, she would turn into. Ash looked at Gabe, thinking, not for the first time since she’d known him, just how awesome he was. She knew he was right, too; for as much as Ash desperately missed what she and Nat had once had, she knew she was missing more what they could have right now. Perhaps it really was time to see their relationship through an adult’s eyes, rather than persisting in still seeing them through a teenager’s.

  “You really do have to stop thinking about the past,” Gabe continued, taking the thoughts from her head, “if you’re to have any kind of future with her.” He looked her straight in the eye. “It’s got to be worth a try, don’t you think?” he asked. “You and her?”

  Ash held his gaze and slowly nodded.

  “It’s not like Ireland’s so very far away,” Gabe said, a smile spreading across his face.

  “That’s what Nat said,” Ash said.

  “Then listen to what she’s saying to you,” Gabe said. “Sure, it’s not ideal, but if it’s meant to be between you two, then you can make it ideal, can’t you? You can make it into whatever you want it to be.”

  “I’ve never been to Ireland.” Ash smiled ruefully down at the floor. “Guess it wouldn’t hurt to see what it’s like.”

  “So it’s time to stop keeping her at arm’s length,” Gabe said, “isn’t it?” He returned to the coffee maker and pulled two mugs down from a shelf. “And don’t forget, you both still have Livvy’s letter to think about.”

  “What about Livvy’s letter?”

  “Well aren’t you curious what she had planned for the pair of you as her last wish?” Gabe asked. “The last wish that the pair of you should have done together while Nat was still down here?”

  The coffee boiled. Ash slipped a look through the kitchen door to her front room and to Livvy’s letter, feeling a stain of guilt. She’d delayed opening the final letter, somehow fearing what would be inside it. Knowing that the last letter would cut her final link with both Livvy and Nat. That the adventure—the one she’d both dreaded and loved—would finally be over. That the thread that had pulled her through the last two weeks, closer to them both, would at last be severed and everything Ash had hoped wasn’t true would be: Livvy really was dead and Nat was never coming back into her life ever again.

  “It’ll mean the end.” Ash spoke her thoughts. “The end of the journey.”

  “Or the gateway to a new one,” Gabe said. “Have you thought of that?”

  ❖<
br />
  The music was too loud, the bass too reverbing. If the rapid, pounding beat was supposed to inspire the gym users, it merely served to give Nat a headache. Enough. She slowed her pace on the bike and called over to Maddie.

  “I’m done.”

  She reached over and turned her machine off, then stepped away. She wrapped her towel round her neck, wiping at her eyes and her hairline.

  “You’re done already?” Maddie called over from her bike.

  “I can’t concentrate.” Nat swirled a hand around her head. “Too loud.”

  If only it was the music stopping her concentration. She walked across the gym and sank down onto a chair. The unscheduled visit to the gym had been Maddie’s idea—a distraction from your thoughts. It hadn’t worked. Instead, Nat had found herself deeper and deeper in thought the longer she cycled, imagining her bike taking her out and away from the gym, out of London, and straight back to Cornwall.

  “Now I definitely know you’re getting old.” Maddie sat next to her. “Music too loud indeed.” She looked at her. “You’re still in Cornwall, aren’t you? In here.” She tapped her temple.

  “There’s no point in wishing I was somewhere I’m not, though,” Nat said.

  She stared around her, at the starkness of the gym. She missed St. Kerryan and everything about it: waking up to the sound of the sea, the suck and swish of the waves against the pebbles on the beach, and the crying of the gulls overhead. The way the air smelt clean and fresh, quite unlike the choking pollution of London. Going to bed happy but exhausted from a day walking along the coast, excited knowing she’d see Ash again the next day.

  Having something, for the first time in years, to look forward to.

  “I can’t believe she let you go,” Maddie said, “bearing in mind what you just told me you’re prepared to do for her.”

  “I’m doing it for me too.” Nat rested her head against the wall. “I’ll finally be doing what I do best, but I’ll be free of my responsibilities.” She rolled her head against the wall and looked at Maddie. “And free of my therapist.” She laughed. “Free of mind.”

  “It’s a shame you never got to finish your friend’s wishes though.”

  “Livvy’s?” Nat frowned. “We had a pretty good crack at them though,” she said. “Six out of eight.” Her smile returned. “That was six more than I thought we’d do when I read her letters at Judy’s house.”

  When I was scared stiff of seeing Ash again.

  Nat stared at the wall opposite her. That all felt like such a long time ago now.

  “And Ash?” Maddie asked. “Do you think she ever thought you’d have gone as far?”

  “We came a long way,” Nat replied. “Further than either of us imagined.” She wasn’t sure whether she was talking about the wish list or their feelings for one another.

  “But you’re back up here and she’s still down there,” Maddie said. “So perhaps not as far as you’d hoped.”

  “No.” Nat stood. “Not nearly as far as I’d hoped.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Livvy’s final letter to Ash remained unopened on her coffee table. Gabe had left an hour ago, just before dusk, leaving Ash with nothing else to do but stare at the letter and try to summon up the courage to read it.

  She sat in her chair, her mind tumbling back over the years. To the first time she met Livvy and Nat, as clear to her today as it was then. Three nervous year sevens arriving at school at the same time, standing together in the corridor exchanging worried glances, too scared to speak to one another. Then the delight at finding they would be in the same class together, familiar faces in amongst a sea of strangers.

  Then, as year nines, bolder. Firm friends with a familiarity that none of them could have ever dreamed possible. Regularly in and out of one another’s houses, weekends and holidays spent hanging out in central London, directing tourists the wrong way and trying to make the guards at Buckingham Palace laugh.

  There was always so much laughter. Ash smiled in the fading gloom of her lounge.

  It had been true what Lisa Turner had said to Ash at Livvy’s funeral. They’d been The Untouchables: invincible, their friendship impenetrable, much to the envy of the other girls at the school.

  Her eyes fell to the letter again. Could she salvage what was left of her and Nat? Could she do it for Livvy? Ash scooted over > to the table and picked the letter up. Inside, she knew, would be > the end. She slipped her index finger under the flap and shook the letter out.

  Dearest Flash,

  So here we are at our final letter. My last wish and now the end of the road, as it were.

  Ash looked away, focusing on a tree branch waving in the breeze outside her window. Our final letter. She drew in a deep breath and returned to it.

  Did you manage to do the whole list? Did Chloe behave herself? (Did you?) And did you all have an absolute blast doing each thing? I really do hope so, because I have a tiny confession to make; they all served a really important purpose.

  Now you’re confused, aren’t you? Yes, I know you knew they served a purpose: to show Chloe some of the wonderful stuff I experienced in my oh-so-brief life, and to help her in her grieving for me. And you are correct, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for agreeing to do it. I’m sure Chloe loved having her two favourite non-aunties back in her life again, if only for a short while.

  But…my letters were also designed for another purpose, and that purpose involved you and Crackles.

  I knew about you and Nat, you see. All along. And while I always wanted you both to tell me you were together, I suppose I understood why you’d want to keep it to yourselves, but…My God! You two were so good together, you know that? Okay, I know what she did to you was awful and terrible and I’m sure you dreamed of so many different ways to kill her slowly after she left you (joke) but, oh, Flash! It’s Nat! It’s you and Nat! It’s Nat and you, and you two were always meant to be together, you know?

  Ash squeezed her eyes tight shut, forcing the tears from them. Livvy knew. Livvy had always known. She opened her eyes and gazed upward. Of course she’d known. Beautiful, clever Livvy.

  Ash looked back to the letter.

  Now, I know at this point you’ll be shaking your head at all this, so I need to tell you something, because I’m sure Nat never told you, even though you should have just spent the last two weeks together talking about stuff.

  She tried to find you. Her parents tried to make her spend that last summer studying (you know what they were like) but she ignored them because she realized what a terrible thing it was she’d done to you and she wanted to go and find you, beg you to forgive her. Take her back. She went over to France, into Spain, nearly into Portugal before she finally gave up, knowing it was futile. Europe’s a big place, Flash. But you have to believe me when I tell you she was distraught when she knew she’d lost you for good. Distraught and guilt-ridden.

  You know, our friendship was never the same after that. Mine and Nat’s. She retreated into herself, shot off up to Edinburgh as soon as she could so she could get as far away as possible from London and her parents, and threw herself into her studies up there. She knew she’d made the biggest mistake of her life, Flash. More than that, she knew that what she’d done had broken up our threesome forever.

  Ash let the letter fall to her lap. Why hadn’t Nat told her more about that? If Ash had known, just for a second, that Nat had actually come looking for her, she would have gone to her. Instead, as the weeks and months passed, she’d had to endure the belief that Nat never thought of her, her spirit dying just a little bit more with the realization that Nat didn’t care a thing for her.

  Hot tears rested in Ash’s eyes. She wiped them away with her sleeve and picked up Livvy’s letter again.

  The years passed. You came back and built up your stonking business from scratch, Nat became this super doctor, I became the best bloody lawyer this side of the Thames, and I saw the pair of you individually. But the three of us were never a
trio ever again, Nat was a shadow of her former self, and you still couldn’t even bring yourself to say Nat’s name out loud.

  Let me tell you some home truths. You never got over her, she never got over you, and do you know how many times over the years I just wanted to bang your heads together and say, for goodness’ sake, talk to each other. But you never did.

  Bet you’re talking now though.

  In case you haven’t guessed by now, I wanted my letters to also be a way to get you two talking to each other again. I don’t know if you can ever get back what you once had, but talking could be a start, hey?

  She loves you, Flash. Categorically, unequivocally, head over heels. Always has done, always will do, and she knows she messed up big time with you.

  A table for two has your name on it at The Fisherman. You know the place you took me when I came down to visit you one summer and Chloe was teething and screeched the place down? I always thought it was lovely, and just the sort of place for the perfect tête-à-tête. But without a squawking, ruddy-faced baby, obviously.

  I Googled it, and it’s still there.

  Take Nat there. Talk some more. Lay some ghosts to rest and maybe, just maybe…

  And that, dear Flash, is my last wish for both of you. Be happy. You were made for each other.

  So now this is where I sign off. Eighth letter, over and out, and all that.

  I miss you, and I want you to know that the time when I knew you was the best of my life (well, apart from having Chloe, obviously). I’m just sorry you, me, and Nat never got to grow old together. But I guess c’est la vie, even if that is the shittiest thing ever.

  Enjoy life. Have no regrets. It really is too short, Flash.

  Love you loads.

  Livvy xxx

  Ash pulled the letter to her chest, the ache inside almost unbearable. She held the letter, reading it over again, picking out the bits that made her happy and made her sad. A smile passed over her lips as she read Livvy’s words, hearing her voice, the smile fading as she realized that Livvy would never get to have her final wish, and that if she’d thought her letters would bring Ash and Nat together again, then she’d been mistaken. That thought hurt more than anything else.