Page 1 of Forgive Me Not
Chapter 1
The carriage slid to a halt, its doors opened and Emma stepped off the train. Like old enemies, scenes from the past ambushed her mind. They took her back to her last day in Healdbury – home as it had been then. She could almost smell the blood that had permeated her dress as she’d run away from her sister’s voice. Yet today didn’t feel like going back – more like going forwards. She gripped the pull handle of her suitcase, readjusted the rucksack on her back and with determined strides left the platform. Early June sunshine hit her face as she headed along the narrow path that led into the village.
Thank goodness she’d worn long cotton trousers, what with the straggle of nettles either side. Were the prickly leaves trying to safeguard the village from her arrival?
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she told herself firmly.
Yet her chest tightened as certain questions persisted. Was this the right decision? Would Andrea and Mum take her back? What about her mother’s health? The diagnosis had been long-term. Surely she couldn’t have deteriorated that much?
And what about the suffering she herself had caused during that last Christmas at the farm?
She reached the first buildings in the village, trying to dispel negative thoughts. Compared to the Gothic architecture of Manchester, they looked Lilliput Lane quaint. The occasional dandelion growing between paving stones punctuated the way instead of cigarette butts and discarded takeaway food. She squinted in the sunshine. On the pavement ahead was Mrs Beatty from the gift shop. The old woman stopped for a second and did a double-take from under her sunhat. A handkerchief fell from her hand.
Emma hurried forward and picked it up. ‘You dropped this,’ she said, and gave an unsure smile. The shop owner’s lips pursed shut like the top of a drawstring bag and she turned away and crossed the road.
Emma’s heart beat faster as she carried on past the post office and the Badger Inn. She glanced left into the butcher’s window and a sense of relief flooded her limbs. Darts fan Bill was standing behind the counter preparing meat. He looked the same apart from his hairline, which had retreated even further. Perhaps her life, too, would just carry on as it had before. He caught her eye and wrinkled his nose, the sight of her more unpleasant than the smell of raw flesh. Still holding his knife, he went to the glass door and flipped the sign fromOpentoClosed. Well, it was almost five o’clock. Bill always used to shut the shop on time.
She pulled the case onwards, past the small Tudor church hall. To her surprise, a homeless woman had set up outside the supermarket across the road. She had asymmetrical dyed red hair, shaved short on the left. Locals steered clear as if they might catch the rough sleeper’s bad luck.
As she headed up Broadgrass Hill, Emma drank in the sight of trees, flowers and insects. She pulled her luggage over to one side to let an elderly man she didn’t know pass. He tipped his hat. Healdbury seemed impossibly lush after the greyness of the city, with its shades of green, colourful petals and tortoiseshell wings, and the scents that characterised journeys, be they of woody soil or fresh dewy grass. A dead blackbird lay in her path, wings broken, neck distorted. Emma released her case and crouched. Gloved with a dock leaf, she gently picked up the body and hid it in the verge’s foliage. Then she wiped her brow on her arm. Combined with the afternoon heat, the weight of her luggage had become stifling.
She turned left into the dusty drive that led to her old home, and a bubble rose in her throat as she breathed in the sweet honeysuckle that grew all around a nearby birdbath. The last time she’d passed it, Andrea’s angry shouts had accompanied the pounding of Emma’s feet running away on frosty ground.
She coughed and walked towards the side of the farmhouse, passing a large patch of wild flowers. Further on stood a cluster of apple trees. A road veered off to the right that eventually doubled back on itself and led to the main entrance and parking space. It was lined with pink foxgloves, which were preceded each year by a carpet of forget-me-nots, Mum’s favourite flower. With their yellow faces and tiny petals, a younger Emma had thought of them as the gentlest dance troupe as they swayed in the spring breeze.
She turned away and stared ahead at the kissing gate, more crooked than ever, with hinges that needed fixing. It stood in the middle of a mossy stone wall and provided a short cut to the front door if you were on foot. She and Bligh had kissed there for the very first time – only out of respect for tradition, they’d insisted. Emma could almost feel the splintered beams against her back as Bligh’s lips pressed against hers.
Bligh. Tall, with the shortest beard. Tanned, with the whitest T-shirts. The firmest arms and the lightest touch. A man of contradictions.
Would he still be here? Had he gone to the police about what she’d done?
A shaggy blur of black and white charged at her from behind the farmhouse. She hurried forward, juggled her luggage around the kissing gate and dropped to her knees, pulling off her rucksack just in time as the Border collie lunged at her chest with a joyous bark. She fell backwards and her face crumpled as she righted herself.
‘Dash! I’ve missed you so much, lad.’ She buried her face in his white bib, grateful that he hadn’t blanked her as well, and ran her hands through his tousled coat. Doggy breath hit her as Dash licked her face hard. Was he trying to remove the months – years – that had kept them apart?
‘I should have taken you with me,’ she croaked when he finally backed away and gazed at her, ears alert. ‘A three-legged pet would have earned me lots of spare change. Talk about the ultimate underdog.’ She gazed at the space where his front leg should have been. ‘I wanted to,’ she whispered, ‘but at the time all I could think about was myself.’
The dog lay down and rolled on his back, begging for attention. His enthusiasm made Emma feel more optimistic. She crouched for a moment longer and tickled his stomach. It was her mum who’d saved him. She had heard that a local sheep farmer was putting him down: he couldn’t afford the upkeep of an animal that couldn’t keep up. Emma knew what it was like not to fit in, and like two halves of a lock slotted together, the doors to unconditional love had swung apart between them.
She gave his tummy one last pat and got to her feet, making her way around to the front of Foxglove Farm. Dash stuck to her side, lolloping with his familiar bounce. Before crossing in front of the windows that might betray her presence, she stepped back and surveyed the L-shaped building.
The wooden front door led straight into the lounge, with stairs going up to the bedrooms. Behind that was the dining room, and to the right of that the big kitchen and the farmhouse shop. Her eyes narrowed in the sunshine as she studied the building’s uneven rubble-stone exterior, painted in the buttery limewash that had been applied during the final stages of renovation.
Emma could still remember the dullness and damp from when they’d first moved in. Mum had dreamt of creating a pretty chocolate-box cliché, with thatched roof, painted beams and colourful window boxes. All of that had been achieved, but now… What had happened? The paintwork was peeling and the limewash badly needed a refresh. The windows looked dirty. Mum had always prided herself on how they shone, despite the continual onslaught of dust. And the window boxes, the hit of the summer show, were missing their usual cast of petunias and geraniums.
She headed towards the front door, the loose ceramic name plate hanging lopsided. The doormat lay curled and weather-beaten. To the right-hand side stood the tallest sunflower, which hadn’t yet bloomed. Emma wiped perspiration from her brow and reached for the cold metal knocker. This was it. She couldn’t wait to see her family again so that they could all get things back on track. She’d missed the hugs. The laughs. The teamwork at harvest time. Recently she’d spent countless daydreams imagining a heartfelt reunion.
Dash nudged his nose against her thigh as if to say:it’ll be all right. Emma scratched behind his ears and counted. Nothing. No footsteps. She rapped again. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen… Finally she heard the thud of sensible heels on laminate and the door creaked open.
The house seemed so different but surely Andrea would have stayed the same? Surely life had just plodded on here – in fact run more easily, without the chaos that Emma had brought? However, the sight of the dark rings under Andrea’s widening eyes blew this theory out of the water. Her long brown hair had been sliced shorter and was scraped back into a ponytail, with premature grey at the sides. She still had that scar above her top lip. Andrea and Mum had never been able to remember what caused it. Her feisty hazel eyes were now dull. She was still tall and tanned, but not as solid. She looked… fragile.
Emma’s stomach twisted like the strongest bindweed. ‘Hi, Andrea. It’s me.’
Her older sister’s lips rolled together before she slammed the door. The ceramic name plate fell to the ground and smashed into uneven pieces.
Chapter 2
Emma bent down and picked up the fragments of the broken sign before stacking them to the side. As she straightened up, she told herself sternly that Andrea’s reaction shouldn’t feel unexpected. Deep breaths. Dash had bolted at the noise but now returned to her side and nudged her leg again. Emma took hold of the knocker and rapped once more. This time footsteps quickly sounded and the door was yanked open.
