Page 74 of Hope and Happiness in Bluebell Wood
‘I have no idea,’ I reply, staring at the closed door. ‘No idea whatsoever.’
Twenty-three
The wood is always so calming,I think as Merlin and I walk briskly along one of the paths a few days later. No matter what turmoil my mind might be in, the wood always has the ability to smooth it out and slow it back down to a comfortable pace.
Today, my mind is particularly chaotic due to a variety of reasons.
Hannah has left Bluebell Wood and gone back to her life in Lincoln, but not before gently breaking it to me that she’d got a promotion at work, and she’s going to be transferring to their head office in central London.
‘I left it until now to tell you, Mum,’ she’d said the morning she was due to depart, ‘because I wanted to see how you were doing. You seem so much better since you’ve come here to Bluebell Wood. I hoped it wouldn’t worry you quite as much now as it would have done before.’
I’d immediately put on a brave face, and assured her that I did feel much better, and that of course I’d worry about her, but perhaps not to the extent I would have done previously.Hannah had seemed happy with my reassurances, and had left content that her mother was going to be fine.
Except I wasn’t fine.
I now had a son who was temporarily living in New York, and a daughter who was about to move to London permanently. I was happy for them both, of course I was, but that wasn’t going to stop me worrying. Every parent worries about their offspring, especially when they leave home. But I had an added layer of fear. One that, day to day, I was gradually taking control of; but when prodded a bit too hard, that underlying torment rose far too easily to the surface once more.
That wasn’t the only reason for my distress today as I stride along underneath the protection of the trees.
The way I’d left things with Callum on Easter Sunday was also causing me much anguish.
After Hannah had left on Easter Monday, I’d sat in the garden for a while just thinking. It was a lovely day, and the warmth of the sunshine on my skin, and watching the continual comings and goings of the birds to the table, had temporarily eased some of the pain that his sudden departure had caused.
Why had he left like that? Had I said or done something wrong? I’d gone over and over in my mind what had caused his change of heart. One moment he’d been all over me – which I hadn’t minded in the least – and the next, his ardour had completely cooled, and it felt like what we’d been doing had been nothing but an embarrassment to him.
I sigh as we walk on, getting further into the woods.
It really was a complete mystery to me, and one Callum obviously didn’t want to solve. The ‘dinner date’ we’d casually suggested for Monday had come and gone without a word. I hadn’t seen or heard from Callum since Sunday.
I was sure everything he’d told me about Jemima had been true. Jemima had actually popped round on Easter Monday just after Hannah had left, with a bunch of flowers and a mountain of apologies.
She’d been mortified she’d got so tipsy, and could only remember some of what had gone on. But what she did tell me only backed up what Callum had said.
‘Callum is very dear to me, Ava,’ she’d told me over a cup of tea. ‘I can be a little protective of him, I have to admit. But I only want him to be happy, and I think you two would be really good together.’
Now, as I walk through the woods with Merlin, I’m trying desperately not to stress too much about either Hannah or Callum and concentrate solely on the trees and the birdsong, and the healing power of nature, which always seemed to calm me down and soothe my soul.
‘Hello, you,’ I say as I feel Merlin brush past my legs. He’d dropped back, stopping to sniff something, and now he was trying to get ahead of me on the path once more. ‘Not tiring yet, then?’
Merlin never seemed to tire. We could walk for hours and he would still have the same spring in his four furry feet that he’d had when we set off.
Luckily for him, I was in the mood for a long walk. The longer I spent in the woods, the more my problems seemed to ease, and currently that could only be a good thing.
When we reach the stream we both stop for a drink from the cool running water.
‘Callum is right, this is amazing,’ I say to Merlin, as he laps happily beside me. ‘If only they could bottle this taste.’
As had happened many times over the last few days, atjust the thought of Callum, my heart, which once would have leapt at his name, now sinks deep into the pit of my stomach.
‘Come on,’ I encourage Merlin, ‘let’s see if we can get all the way up to those ruins again before we turn back.’
To my surprise, as we reach the top of the hill and approach the ruins that we’d found Robin hiding in, I notice two figures moving around.
And as we get closer, I see that it’s Robin again, but this time he’s accompanied by Linnet.
‘Merlin!’ Robin shouts with glee as he spies his furry friend galloping towards him. Linnet waves at me, and at a steadier pace we reach each other a few moments after Robin and Merlin.
‘Hello. What are you two doing all the way up here?’ I ask Linnet as Robin and Merlin play happily with each other a little way away from us.
