Snowdrops on Rosemary Lane

by Ellen Berry

  James nodded as they strolled down towards the shed. ‘That looks interesting. Spike would love that.’

  ‘The shed? Come and see it …’ Partly hidden by overhanging willows, and in the shade of the oak, it was looking rather shabby with its wonky timbers and peeling pistachio paint. She opened the creaky door and James peered in at the clutter. ‘Wow. Looks like there’s been a lot of creativity happening in here.’

  Lucy nodded. ‘Ivan and the kids used it as a sort of den. They made things together – probably not a patch on your standards, but they made that …’ She pointed at the birdhouse attached to the trunk of the oak.

  ‘That’s impressive!’

  ‘But I should really deal with what’s in here sometime,’ she continued, ‘and the attic too. It’s absolutely stuffed.’

  ‘What with?’ James asked.

  ‘Oh God – all sorts. But mainly Ivan’s things. It’s where I put all his stuff that I couldn’t make a decision about. So, basically, pretty much everything.’

  He nodded, clearly understanding. ‘I imagine the last thing you needed was to sort through everything, and have to make all those decisions.’

  ‘Yep. I just shoved it all away out of sight. All his paperwork, his work-related books, his hobby stuff – and Ivan had a lot of hobbies.’

  ‘What kind?’ James asked.

  ‘He went through quite a few,’ she said, smiling now. ‘Ivan was the kind of person to throw himself into something, and that would involve buying all the equipment, the materials, the accessories. There was the fitness phase, the gym equipment, the weights and treadmill and cycling gear, then the artistic period when he got into screen printing. Then he bought a saxophone.’

  James nodded. ‘So he was an enthusiast.’

  ‘Yes, I guess you could say that,’ she said as they made their way back towards the house.

  Back in the kitchen, Lucy poured more coffee from the pot, hoping James really hadn’t minded her having a good cry in front of him today. She hadn’t done that for months now; in fact, she couldn’t remember the last time. When someone died, it felt as if there was a specific period when you could talk all the time, and cry and be crazy and nothing sensible was expected of you. It was fine to not wash your hair – or even your face – and to look terribly shabby and forget that the children were supposed to take in old family photographs for a class project.

  It was okay to be the disorganised mum who accidentally wandered out of the greengrocer’s with a bunch of bananas without paying for them.

  It was even okay to snap at the children for some tiny misdemeanour and then apologise and hug them as if your lives depended on it. All of that was okay.

  But then time moved along, and the bereavement cards and kindly texts gradually petered out. People stopped bringing shepherd’s pies and cakes – of course they did. They couldn’t nurture you forever; they had their own lives to get on with, and worries of their own. And it felt as though your allotted grieving period had run out, as if it were time on a parking meter, and so you decided that from now on you’d better keep your feelings to yourself.

  Nearly a year and a half had passed since Ivan had died. Lucy was still a little shellshocked by her outpouring of tears today.

  She glanced at James as he drained his mug. ‘Well, I guess I’d better get up to Dad’s,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the coffee. It’s been lovely seeing you.’

  ‘I really am sorry for getting upset,’ she said quickly.

  James stood up and touched her arm fleetingly. ‘Please don’t say that. I’m glad you’ve told me all that stuff, you know? It’s important. And I was thinking just then. You know all the stuff in your shed, and in your attic that you can’t bring yourself to sort out?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Erm …’ He rubbed at his sun-browned neck. ‘Would you like me to help you with it sometime?’

  Lucy pulled a face. ‘Oh, it’ll be a horrible job. It’ll be filthy and messy and I’ll probably get quite emotional.’ She paused, wondering how best to put it. I’m still not sure I can bear to throw anything way, is what she meant.

  ‘All I mean is,’ James continued, ‘it might be useful to have a friend with you, helping you to work your way through it. You know – a bit of moral support. What d’you think?’

  Lucy put down her mug on the worktop and looked at him. Instinctively, she knew she could trust him to be sensitive, and not try to make decisions for her; but still, the thought appalled her. ‘It’s lovely of you to offer,’ she said as she saw him to the front door. ‘I’ll think about it, okay?’

  ‘Well, you know where I am. You can call anytime.’

  She nodded and smiled. ‘Thank you. I don’t mean just for that offer, although that really is kind of you. I mean, thank you for letting me—’ She broke off, sensing her cheeks flushing now, and pushed her hair back awkwardly. ‘It’s just been good to talk,’ she added quickly. ‘Next time it won’t be all about Ivan, I promise.’

  He fixed her with a curious look. ‘It would’ve been strange for us not to talk about it, wouldn’t it?’

  She thrust her hands into her jeans pockets. ‘I guess so, yes.’

  He made his way to the front door. ‘Just drop me a text anytime you fancy a coffee. I’m still here for a day or two once a week.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Lucy said.

  ‘It’s been great seeing you again.’ He smiled warmly and kissed her briefly on the cheek, and then he was gone.

  Lucy stood for a moment, wondering whether he was being truthful with her. She hoped he was; it would be a shame if she’d scared him off forever. Well, it was done now, she decided as she headed off to school to pick up the children. Later, once they were home, she decided it was too lovely an afternoon to cajole them into doing their homework right away. Her time with James had lifted her spirits, and she felt inspired to make the most of the glorious spring afternoon by bringing a blanket and makeshift picnic tea outside. Once they’d finished, and the children were pottering around in the early evening sun, Lucy strolled around the garden, gathering ideas for her next floral decorations. Despite everything, she still loved it here.

  She’d had grand ideas for the place when they’d moved in. The garden had been the main reason she’d yearned to live here; after all, she had never been inside the cottage before that first viewing with the estate agent. Once it was theirs, she had planned to create a new border down by the shed. She’d envisaged a vegetable plot to supply salads and potatoes for the simple bistro-style evening meals she had hoped to offer to guests eventually.

  Some hope of that now, she thought wryly, but she did have a seemingly unstoppable supply of fresh flowers, which she picked and carried back indoors. They hardly needed arranging at all. She just plunged them into glass jugs and vases, fluffing them out with her fingers and placing them in all the downstairs rooms. Instantly, it was as if spring had breathed new life into the cottage.

  ‘Mum!’ Sam yelled from the front door. ‘Can we take Bramble for a walk? Please?’

  ‘Oh …’ She paused, her default response being to say, ‘Not today.’ But why not, she reasoned? She called Carys, who was busy with visitors but said they were welcome to borrow their dog. So the three of them picked him up and headed off on a stroll into the hills.

  Going for walks was something Lucy and the children had started doing together in recent months, even when they didn’t have a canine companion. She suspected it was unusual for children to enjoy it quite as much as Sam and Marnie did; but then, at home she was often busy with B&B guests, and this way they had her all to themselves.

  Curiously, they had never got around to exploring the countryside quite as much when Ivan had still been here. He had never really embraced the idea of heading up into the hills – although he’d implied that it was the kids who were reluctant. ‘Moving to the country doesn’t mean they’ll suddenly love hoofing for miles,’ he’d teased Lucy, shortly after they’d moved in. ‘They’re city kids, remembe
r. They’re used to having stuff all around them, loads to look at, all kinds of life going on.’

  ‘There’s loads going on here too,’ she had argued, but he’d been right: back then, the delights of spotting cows, sheep and even ponies had worn off after some twenty minutes, and many of their early meanderings involved a barrage of moaning and complaints of sore feet. But earlier this year Sam’s love of space exploration had made way for a keenness on nature, and he’d decided to set up a natural history museum in his bedroom, which would require exhibits (as well as an admission fee of 20p). Was this unusual for a seven-year-old boy, Lucy wondered? In some ways, he seemed young for his age – or perhaps just a little old-fashioned, not that this was a bad thing at all. She loved to see Sam collecting interesting pebbles, feathers, scraps of sheep’s wool and even the occasional tiny animal skull on their walks.

  Before long he was asking to go out. Whilst the museum was very much ‘his’ project, Marnie enjoyed helping him, crying out, ‘Sam – how about this?’ when she spotted a tiny blue egg or an unusual pine cone lying on a path. It had sharpened their perception and turned their walks into treasure hunts. They were now hugely pleasurable for all three of them, and Lucy suspected the walks were doing them all good, in all kinds of ways.

  As they walked, they chatted. She discovered that the children were far more likely to share their feelings as they plodded along – sometimes holding her hands, sometimes running ahead – than if she tried to sit them down for A Proper Talk at home. Today, Bramble was the focus as they strode up through the hills and the woods, returning with armfuls of foliage to add to the jugs of flowers in the house.

  ‘It looks lovely in here,’ Carys enthused later, when she turned up with Amber and Noah to collect their now exhausted spaniel. Much later still, when her own children were in bed, Lucy picked up her phone and noticed a text.

  Great to see you today, it read. Look forward to next time and please remember my offer, James. He’d only just sent it. There was no mention of him being appalled at her tearful outburst, or the fact that she had mopped up a gallon of snot with the tea towel that now lay in the bin.

  Thank you, great to see you too, Lx, she replied. While she wasn’t sure whether their friendship would rekindle properly, she couldn’t help being impressed with how he’d been with her today. Some people ran away from grief. They treated it like an unpredictable dog; it scared them, and they didn’t know how to handle it. But James had known, and a sense of warmth filled her heart now as she thought of him. And something else happened too. Somehow, as Lucy headed upstairs to bed that night, she felt a little less alone.

  Chapter Eighteen

  James couldn’t quite believe what he was doing. He never talked about personal stuff, not even with friends, really – because the men he knew didn’t really act like that. They tended to be practical types he’d met through his boat-fitting work and emotions were generally kept under wraps.

  Yet here he was, two weeks after Lucy had invited him over for coffee, back here again. She had spotted him in the bakery and darted in to say hi. It had surprised him how happy he’d been to see her. She looked lovely with her dark, glossy hair worn loose, and a flush to her face.

  Now they were sitting at her garden table, and he was telling her that the mother of his child – the woman he’d been with for eleven years – had had an affair. Lucy pushed back her hair and encouraged him to go on. ‘So, you really had no idea?’

  He shook his head. ‘I suppose I should have. I felt like an idiot for not spotting the signs. But Michaela was a brilliant mum, and in the early years I’d assumed she was happy to not be going out to work, and spending as much time as possible with Spike.’

  It was true. She’d always seemed to have endless energy and patience, and Spike adored her. But as he grew older and started school, she started to suffer from anxiety and insomnia. She had returned to work as a legal secretary and said that her job was stressing her out. ‘I’d tried to convince her that we could manage on my earnings,’ he continued, ‘but she was adamant that she wanted to be working too – and of course that was fine. I understood that. A couple of years went by, and when Spike was seven, she started to act all weird and jumpy and not like herself at all.’

  Lucy nodded as if she understood, and again, James wondered why he was telling her all this. He hadn’t planned to tell her anything really; it had just tumbled out.

  ‘Was she stressed?’ she asked. ‘I mean, it’s hard going out to work when you have young children. You want to work, and be part of the outside world again – but then there’s guilt about not being there constantly …’

  He sipped from his mug. ‘Yeah, she said that was it – that she was stressed and anxious. I suggested she see her GP, but Michaela was always a bit anti-doctors and started seeing an acupuncturist instead – first for the anxiety and then for other stuff, like migraines, back pain, toothache, stuff I had no idea she had …’ He broke off and paused. He knew he should head off to his dad’s place soon – he’d stopped off at Lucy’s as soon as he arrived – even though he could happily sit here all day.

  ‘Toothaches?’ she prompted him.

  ‘Yep. I suggested she saw a dentist for that, and she said, “Why are you so closed-minded?”’

  They both smiled, and he noticed how very green Lucy’s eyes were in the sunshine. ‘Because you’d suggested that a dentist might be the best person for seeing to teeth?’

  He nodded. ‘She said the acupuncture was really helping her, and she did seem more content generally, since she’d been seeing her. It was all Ally-this, Ally-that. She said it was therapeutic.’

  As they got up and went inside for more coffee, James decided he’d babbled on enough. It had been a painful time in his life, but he was over it now and, again, he wasn’t quite sure why or how he’d ended up sharing all of this with Lucy. She seemed genuinely interested – and, yes, she’d been the one to start on the subject, by gently asking about Spike, and Spike’s mum and what had happened between them. But he didn’t want Lucy to think he was badmouthing his ex, and he hoped it wasn’t coming across that way. It surprised him, the way it seemed to matter what Lucy thought of him. He was a little in awe of her, he realised. Despite everything that had happened to her she seemed so capable and strong.

  Today, he’d learned more about her impressive floristry sideline: parties, christenings, all kinds of special occasions. There were plenty of grand country weddings around here, and as word spread he was sure she would soon be in high demand. James had a wedding to attend to himself in a few weeks’ time. Phyllida Somerville was a local dignitary whose daughter was getting married. His father was invited; he had supplied firewood to the family for many years, and they were still fond of him. When the invitation had arrived, James had realised he’d have to brace himself, dig out a suit and accompany his dad.

  In Lucy’s kitchen now, she refilled their mugs from the percolator and motioned for him to take a seat at the table. He spotted her glancing at her phone on the table. ‘I need to pick up the kids from school in half an hour,’ she started.

  ‘Oh, God – I’m sorry,’ James exclaimed. ‘I’ve taken up way too much of your time yet again.’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that,’ she said, smiling now. ‘But you were telling me …’

  ‘I’ve really gone on. I’m sorry.’ He raked at his hair and cleared his throat.

  She laughed, and just then it was as if she hadn’t changed at all from the girl who’d been up for all kinds of adventures. ‘I went on last time, didn’t I? I told you all about Ivan, and I cried, and—’

  ‘Yes, but that was different.’

  ‘Anyway, you’re not going on,’ she said firmly. ‘What I meant was, I’m really curious to know what happened next, about the acupuncturist, I mean.’

  Ah, so she’d guessed. Of course she had.

  ‘I don’t mean that in an idle gossip kind of way,’ she added quickly, ‘but, well, there’s this thing with Ivan �
� this thing that doesn’t quite add up. You know.’ She flushed and looked down momentarily at her mug. ‘But never mind that. What I meant was, I’m genuinely interested. And you were saying?’

  ‘You don’t have much time—’

  ‘So, what happened?’ she cut in. ‘I mean, how did you find out?’

  And so he told her, and by the time they left the house – with her heading to school and him to his car – James had shared more about his personal life with Lucy than he had ever told anyone else.

  He parked at his dad’s house, but he didn’t go in immediately. Instead, he sat there in his car, feeling a little overwhelmed by how much he’d shared with Lucy today. And now he was replaying that scene, three years ago, when he’d stupidly said to Michaela, ‘Aren’t these acupuncture sessions costing quite a lot? I don’t mean it’s a problem. Of course, you can see whoever you like.’

  ‘Oh, so you’re saying I should ask your permission?’ Michaela had shot back.

  ‘Of course not,’ he’d exclaimed.

  ‘Why are you bringing up the cost issue, then?’ She’d glared at him, her hazel eyes narrowed in disdain.

  James had been stuck for words for a moment. What had started with a casual enquiry had been turned around to look as if he begrudged her spending money on looking after herself, which of course he didn’t.

  ‘What about all the money you’ve spent on those tents and sleeping bags, the camping stove and chairs and all that?’

  ‘But … that was for camping,’ he’d pointed out.

  ‘Obviously,’ she remarked, ‘and that’s fine, isn’t it – because it’s something you wanted to do.’

  James had stared at her, unsure of how to proceed, or what the real issue was here. This whole exchange was being conducted in muttered, angry tones, so that Spike – who was watching something on his laptop upstairs – wouldn’t hear them. ‘I thought you liked camping?’ James said.

  ‘No, actually, I hate it!’ Michaela snapped. ‘It’s you who loves being outdoors, sleeping on a bloody blow-up bed and heating up beans on that crappy little stove.’