Page 66 of Secrets in the Snow
‘Sorry, I didn’t expect anyone else to be here.’
I hear the clicking of heels that come to a sudden stop, and when I look up to see I have company, I squint in the slight ray of sunshine at a young woman in a grey mac with a London silk headscarf tied beneath her chin. Shestands over Mabel’s grave just across from me and blesses herself under the shelter of a see-through plastic umbrella.
I spring up, dusting the soil from my hands. I recognize her, but I’ve no idea where from at first and then when I look closer it all comes back to me.
‘I’m an old friend of Mabel’s,’ she says, extending a fine manicured hand that feels cold to touch. ‘My name’s Ingrid, but I doubt if she’s ever mentioned me. When I say I’m an old friend, I only met her once, but sometimes that’s all it takes with certain people.’
‘Nice to meet you, Ingrid,’ I say in return. ‘I’m Roisin. I lived next door to Mabel for a few years. Didn’t I see you at her funeral?’
She nods and smiles at how I recognize her, despite the change in her appearance since then. She was the lady I mistook for Rachel that day.
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘I saw you there too. You’re Ben’s mum, yes?’
I take a step back. How does she know me and my son?
‘Mabel told me all about her wonderful neighbours and how much you’d changed her life for the better,’ Ingrid tells me.
She’s wistful-looking, ghostly almost, and her presence, although it makes me wonder where she turned up from like this out of the blue, is a blanket of serenity and calm.
Her blonde blow-dried hair, so glamorous and smooth on the day of Mabel’s funeral, is gone, her cheekbones that were high and defined back then are now puffed and grey,and her eyes, even though they are painted with eyeliner and beautiful green eye shadow, are home to dark uneven circles.
‘Do you – do you come to her grave a lot or did you know it was her birthday today?’ I ask Ingrid, unable to take my eyes off her. I realize the time, and that I really should get going. I’m on such a tight schedule and can’t afford to waste a minute. ‘Mabel would have been eighty years old today.’
‘I didn’t know that. Wow. I try to call in when I’m passing through the village, which isn’t very often any more,’ she explains, and then she lays a small bunch of wild flowers on the soil. ‘I was Mabel’s hairdresser just once, but her words to me that day as I styled her wispy curls just may have saved my life.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, I’ll never forget her,’ Ingrid tells me. ‘I was in such a fragile state about my health after my cancer diagnosis, but she told me to try and look at it not as the end of something, but the start of something new when I come out the other side. Just hearing those words from her gave me great strength and most of all, she gave me hope.’
My eyes widen.
‘She was a great believer in that theory,’ I say to Ingrid.
We stand there side by side in the rain, both looking on at the resting place of a woman who has touched more lives than she may have ever known. I have the world at my feet and my health to enjoy it.
‘I’d follow her guidance to the end of the earth too,’ I tell Ingrid before I leave her, standing there lost in her own gratitude and thoughts. ‘Before I go, can I ask if you bought your headscarf locally? It looks very familiar.’
She touches the multi-coloured silk scarf and nods her head.
‘I did actually,’ she says. ‘Isn’t it beautiful? I bought it in the vintage store in the village a few weeks ago. I love it.’
I smile at her, and we hold each other’s gaze for longer than what might feel comfortable to others, but then this is no ordinary moment.
‘You’ll never believe it, but that scarf once belonged to Mabel,’ I tell Ingrid, and I watch as disbelief takes over her beautiful face and tears spring up in her eyes.
‘Really?’ she says, her hand going to her chest.
‘Yes, really. It was hers when she was probably about your age. Who knows, maybe this is her way of reconnecting with you? I think she knows you wanted to say thank you.’
I walk the few steps between us and do something I don’t think I’ve ever done to a stranger before. I hug her, and we stand there together, lost in a precious moment as the rain dries up without us even noticing.
‘I’d really better get going as I’ve so much to do today to mark her birthday,’ I say to Ingrid, ‘but it’s been such an honour to meet you.’
As I walk away on this damp autumn day, I am filled bythe knowledge that Mabel’s words and legacy continue to live on around here in so many more ways than she could ever have imagined.
36.
Ialways try to find a window seat when I go to a new café, and I deliberately leave room for my handsome companion who has gone to make a phone call as I take the opportunity to take stock of my surroundings.
