by Fox Brison
Mrs Jeffries peered at the tablet in her hand. “Do we even have a website?”
I couldn’t care less if Jefferies B&B did or didn’t have a website but there was no way I was letting her back into that front room!
“Well, if you two don’t mind I’ll leave you to it. I want to go for a short run; I’m feeling stiff after the drive up,” Nat excused herself. I assumed she was going to our bedroom via the sofa.
“Not at all, pet, I wanted to speak to Skye alone anyway.” Okay that wasn’t ominous. My eyes grew large and I moved my head from side to side with the most miniscule of movements hoping Nat would take the hint, but to no avail. She was out of there faster than a rat up a drainpipe.
“I’m sure that girl is half hare, half Duracell bunny,” Mrs Jefferies observed once Natalie left the room.
I tried not to blush, nor laugh, but I couldn’t have described Natalie better if I’d spent a month of Sundays looking through the online thesaurus. She was most definitely a rampant rabbit, and believe me when I say she could go all night long.
“Yeah, she really is something.”
When the front door slammed shut indicating her daughter had left the cottage, not just the kitchen, Mrs Jeffries took both my hands in hers. Bearing in mind I’d known Natalie’s mam for fifteen years, I can honestly say I have never seen her nervous.
Until now that is.
“Skye, I know this might not be the right time, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for quite a while. You’ve always been a part of our family, ever since you came home with Sara to stay that first weekend when you were thirteen years old. You fit right into the zoo.” She smiled and I echoed it. “As soon as Natalie told me she was gay I always hoped that one day the two of you might get together. You do believe that, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course, I-” I couldn’t see where this was going and I was growing more nervous than she was. Did she not want me to marry Nat?
“Like I said before, this might not be the right thing, nor the right time, but well there’s no time like the present.”
For fucks sake just say it already, I wanted to scream.
“If you want, well what I mean is…” She picked at the hem of her cardigan. Like mother like daughter. “I’d like it, no, I’d be honoured, if you called me Mam, but only if you want to, pet, I won’t be offended if you’d rather not.”
I was stunned. And chuffed. And completely overwhelmed with emotion. She was right, she was like a second mother to me. In fairness, she’d been like a first mam to me for most of my life. “Oh, Mrs Jeff…I’d like that, I mean, I’d love to call you Mam.” I wiped the tears from my eyes. “It might take me a while to get used to it though.” I laughed through tears of joy.
“Take all the time you need, pet. None of us are going anywhere.”
Chapter 41
Skye
I half wakened when Natalie left at the ass crack of dawn (got to love Abby’s colloquialisms) for training, but I could barely open my eyes. When I finally roused enough to think about getting up, delight (and a wee bit of lust) burst out of my chest after I read the note Natalie had left on her pillow for me.
I’ll be back by 2.00pm at the latest, when we’ll continue where we left off yesterday before we were rudely interrupted by my Mam and her Somerset pork.
I lay back down and my eyes fluttered closed. Another hour and I’ll be fit for something… rather than the nothing I was fit for now.
I was experiencing nightmares again. I hadn’t really had any since just after our move to Boston. Then, Nat would rouse me and I’d grumpily apprise her of the fact I was well used to them. “It’s taken twenty years, but I can control them now,” I remember telling her in the dead of one particularly vicious dream laden Massachusetts night. “I learned how to change the ending.” However, the shadows in my eyes and the glistening sheen of sweat, both then and now, indicated that they weren’t something anyone could ever get used to. Natalie, bless her heart, brought me back a Native American dream catcher from her first away match in Kansas. I don’t know if it helped, but after a few months they eased off until I rarely suffered even one.
But they were back, jostling for my attention, and I couldn’t imagine finding an authentic dream catcher on Berwick High Street!
So now when I whimpered in the night, Natalie nestled closer and her warm breath feathered my ear. Even though my restlessness was disturbing her, luckily she didn’t even contemplate my offer to sleep on the sofa.
I waved to Tam Morton as I walked back to the cottage with a pint of fresh milk and four crusty rolls. I was craving bacon rolls; if I believed in the immaculate conception I might have said I was pregnant. Opening the front door, I slipped on the letters lying on the welcome mat. Pat, the postman (I know) was early this morning. Picking them up, I tossed them onto the kitchen counter and flicked the switch on the kettle. Mundane. I liked my life like this. Mundane. Normal. Boring. Sipping my tea, I sorted through the post. Bill. Junk mail. Special offer leaflet for local supermarket. Junk mail. Bill. Hospital appointment. Junk… I dropped the last letter to the floor and stared at the previous one.
I couldn’t breathe.
My world came crashing down and I couldn’t breathe. I put my fleece back on and left the cottage once more. The wind, the cry of the gulls, the waves crashing onto the shore were muffled and distant. My feet gave way in the soft sand and the effort of walking, the effort of breathing, the effort of existing in the moment took my mind off of the date burning like acid in my brain.
Monday, February 12th 2018.
10.30 am.
Wansbeck Hospital, Ashington, Northumberland.
I waved at Tommy who was on the dock mending his nets. “Can I hitch a lift to Hobthrush?” I called over the strengthening wind.
“Skye? Are ye mad?” He looked at me and at the water which was pitching a fit in the channel between us and the mainland. But I’d been out in a boat in worse weather and walked over hills and dales in rainstorms that would have been classed as a monsoon if it had been remotely warm. So I wasn’t mad.
I was numb.
“I need some pictures,” I lied, “for my new book. I’ll pay you extra.”
“I’ll take ye for nowt, Skye, yer family. Jump in.” Seconds later we were chugging over the water to the small islet in the distance. “What time do ye want picking up?”
“I’ll call you, if that’s okay?” I wasn’t paying much attention to the conversation, nor to the scenery passing by in a blur, because the salt spray masked my vision.
Thankfully the salt spray also masked my tears.
“Nae worries,” he said returning to the waves. Ten minutes later I was waving goodbye to Tommy as he slowly disappeared into the distance. The significance of the moment wasn’t lost on me. Was I destined to be an island? Alone, first surrounded by the waters of my past and now circled by the treacherous rocks of my present? I needed a lighthouse to show me a safe path, but I’d neglected to pay the electricity bill and the fog was thickening fast.
The wind blew me three steps back for every step forward, but I persevered. Eventually I found shelter in the lee of some rocks. I had, luckily, remembered my rucksack and pulled out my rain jacket and notebook.
Dear Diary…
I put the pen down and stared out at the grey waves after barely choking out a few sentences.
Two days after my wedding, the day I should to be flying out on honeymoon, I will instead be sat in a hospital room waiting to discover if the scourge of so many, of my father, my grandfather, has ensnared me too.
I can’t do it. I can’t marry Natalie, not without knowing what our future might entail. It wouldn’t be fair on her, on me.
“Hey you.” I peeped up into Natalie’s eyes half hidden by the twilight. She held a torch tightly in her hands, her knuckles were as white as snow and her face looked like a hollowed out shell, the fading light emphasising her beautiful bone structure in shadows. I quickly averted my gaze and foc
ussed on the halo of light on the ground, unwilling, or possibly unable, to meet her eye.
The notebook which I held loosely in my hands dropped to the ground, and I realised I wasn’t only numb from the shock I was also numb from the cold. “How did you find me?” I whispered sinking into her arms. My news could wait a few more minutes. I wanted one last moment safe with her.
“You’re nothing if not predictable, Donaghie. C’mon let’s get you home. Can you walk or do you want me to carry you?” She chuckled recalling the last time she rescued me from here.
“Can we stay? Just for a little while longer.”
“Sure,” she sat down on the damp grass and we stared out over the water to the shoreline in the distance. Bamburgh Castle was silhouetted proudly in the darkening sky, the rising moon highlighting its walls and crenelated battlements more beautifully than any manmade illumination ever could. “You’ll never be able to run fast enough, I’ll always catch you. You’ll never think of a hiding place good enough, because I’ll always find you.”
“Nat… we need to postpone the wedding.”
“No, we don’t.” She tensed and I placed a hand on her thigh. She immediately covered it with her own and squeezed. “We don’t,” she reiterated.
“Yes.” I insisted quietly.
“Why? Nothing’s changed,” she said calmly.
“Everything has changed!” I screamed into the wind. “Damn it, Nat.”
She held my hand to her chest. “Feel this? My heart beating? That’s yours. My heart beats for you. Nothing has changed. Nothing will change that, Skye.”
“I’m scared, Nat.”
“Me too, baby, but that lump doesn’t scare me. What scares me is you shutting me out. So, we wait and what? No one can predict the future Skye, we could get married and the next day get hit by a bus.” She stood and pulled me to my feet. “I don’t care what the future brings,” she stated forcefully, “as long as you are by my side and we face it together.”
Chapter 42
Natalie
Standing at the doorway to the kitchen of my Mam’s café, I watched in silence as she prepared breakfast for the morning rush, which at this time of the year was Sammy and Uncle Tam coming in to escape their wives and the healthy breakfast option of porridge oats.
“Hey, Mam,” I said softly.
“Nat?” She held a hand to her chest and stared at me like I was Jack the Ripper. “Don’t sneak up like that, you could have given me a heart attack.”
“Sorry, Mam, I didn’t mean to spook you.” I perched on the stool next to the counter, put there for any waifs and strays that might call in.
“You always were the quiet one.” She took another plate from the shelf and began heaping bacon, eggs and fried bread on to it. “Here, get this into you.”
My stomach revolted at the sight. I hadn’t been eating great since Skye received her letter from the Wansbeck Hospital and the coffee was burning a hole in my gut. “I don’t know if I can, Mam,” I whispered back. I found myself crying. Skye was the one going through the scare, Skye was the one with the threat of a life changing illness on the horizon.
I must be strong for her.
But being strong when I felt as weak as a day old kitten was proving an impossible task. I’m meant to be a lioness, God damn it! Mam put her arm around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head. “Want to talk about it?” She joined me with her own breakfast and a cup of tea. Her china mug, white with pink roses and a gilt rim, was a Mother’s Day present from Skye. I remember the day vividly. I was sixteen and crushing so hard on Skye I worried she might turn to dust. I never admitted it, of course, and for many years I fought it. I even dated her younger brother Cameron at one stage!
Yeah I know; Skye isn’t the only one with a tendency to bury her head in the sand. I chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” Mam asked.
“I was remembering when Skye bought you that mug. You’d have thought she’d given you the Holy Grail.”
“It felt like that,” Mam admitted. “Her and Sara went all the way to Fenwick’s for it.”
“I think that was the day I fell in love with her,” I admitted. “Not that I recognised it as such.”
“You used to follow her around like a lost puppy. Although that morning you caught her and Sara coming in from Tommy’s party, I was worried you might be stalking her.”
Again I chuckled. “No one believes I was on my way out for a jog.” I crunched into my toast, the rest of my breakfast was long gone. Mam’s were good at that; distracting you, giving you what you needed even if you didn’t know what that was. Skye never had that, and even though my Mam tried her best to be a surrogate, it wasn’t the same. Even now…
“I can’t…” I couldn’t put into words the fear in my heart. “I’m so scared. I keep waking at night, because… because…”
“Because you want to be there for her in case she needs you.”
“Partly. I don’t want to let her down, she’s had so much fucking shit to deal with!” I said angrily. “It isn’t fair, Mam, I wish it was me, If I could swap places with her I would. In a heartbeat, I would. Oh god I can’t lose her!” My cry was melancholic wail of raw emotion.
Mam held me and rocked me back and forth. “Shhh it’s okay, pet, it’s okay to be frightened. This is the woman you plan on spending the rest of your life with, the mother of your children.”
Wow. Children? Let’s knock that idea on the head before it takes root. “Mam, we’re only getting married in a few weeks’ time; children are a long way off yet,” I sniffed.
“Still.” She let me go and poured us both another cup of tea from the pot. “Looka, I know you don’t want to place any more worries on Skye’s shoulders and that’s how it should be. But you’ll be no good to her if you don’t take care of yourself.”
I began to cry again, soft tears that fell gently down my cheek. “What if it’s bad news, Mam?”
“Then you’ll be her shoulder to cry on and her arms to hold her when she’s terrified. You’ll carry her when she needs carried and be at her back when she wants to walk alone. And I’ll be here to do the same for you, Sara too.”
“Thanks, Mam.”
I hadn’t needed my arse kicked, or my ego stroked, or anything like that.
I guess I wanted to hear it was okay to fall apart, because there’d be plenty of hands to help me pick up the pieces if I did.
Chapter 43
Skye
Nat brought me breakfast in bed, toast and coffee, and we talked around the houses, down every street and avenue, until finally we could no longer avoid the wedding. Da, daa, daaaah! Cue ominous sounding music and a shadowy figure.
“Let’s start by making a list,” Nat said. “We’ve both been to weddings. How hard can it be? First things first. Flowers?”
“Sara has that covered,” I said. Happily. Flower arranging was never something that floated my boat.
“Okay, cool. Food?”
“Your Mam and Angie said they’ll organise the food. They’re planning to do most of it themselves.”
“Cake?” Nat was grinning. So was I. How easy? If you believed Sara and Tara, planning a wedding was like competing in an Iron Woman triathlon; long, hard and with several stroppy bitch moments!
“Ali,” I said tentatively.
“Ali?” Nat’s face fell.
“She makes an amazing fruit cake and really wants to do this for us.”
“Okay…” she still held an air of apprehension. “She won’t you know, use holy water to mix the icing, so that when you feed me my piece of cake I’ll start melting from the inside out?”
“Nat,” I slapped her arm. “We’ve made our peace.”
“Fine, fine, I only hope she’s not lulling us into a false sense of security before calling on the avenging angels to smite and blight us,” she grumbled good naturedly. “Invites.”
“You’re picking up the sample tomorrow.”
“Right. So what else is there?”
“Outfits.” This time I grinned as hers melted.
“Outfits… Skye… you don’t want me in a dress, do you?”
I thought about teasing her, but wasn’t that cruel; besides Sara would probably have the piss taking duties covered too. “Not at all. You can wear whatever you want,” I noticed a mischievous sparkling in her eyes, “as long as it’s not your England shirt,” I hurriedly qualified.
“What,” she pouted, “not even the white one?” She appeared deadly serious, but she bloody well better not have been.
“No, not even the white one.” Rolling Nat over, I straddled her. “So we have everything covered?” I moved my hips forward, scarcely a millimetre. It was enough. “Do you feel like celebrating?”
“God, yes,” she moaned.
Could it honestly be this easy to organise our wedding?
***
That conversation occurred two weeks ago… and the simple wedding preparations Natalie and I presumed were sorted? Mmhmm, I wish.
Every second phone call or visit concerned the wedding. I’d never appreciated quite how many decisions had to be made. White or red wine? Why not go rosé was my helpful response Photographs? Yes of course. Who would take them? Andy because he has the nicest camera.
So many little details, so many large consequences. I didn’t need our day to be flawless; I mean come on, this was me we were talking about (and I was expecting at least two minor problems and one major catastrophe) but the biggest consequence and a very welcome one, was that I wasn’t thinking about anything apart from the wedding. The axe primed to fall in the form of my hospital appointment, was more of a shadow, insubstantial yet there if you searched hard enough.
But you know what? For once Little Miss Pessimism was no longer actively seeking the dark side of the moon.
***