Page 12 of Autumn at the Willow River Guesthouse
‘I baked one of those spinach pies that your father really likes.’
7
Old Friend
At first, as August’s lingering heat began to fade away into September’s cool mornings and sudden thunderstorms, Lily couldn’t bring herself to go outside. She lay on her bed or sat in the living room watching TV, trying not to think about anything too deeply. Since throwing her phone into the river outside Steve’s place, she had maintained radio silence, refusing to go online or even get around to sorting out a replacement phone. Every morning she had woken to the sound of her mother doing a body combat exercise DVD in the living room, then ambled downstairs to eat breakfast with her father before he went off in his burger van to work. Then, for the rest of the day she had either watched TV or pottered about in the garden, weeding flowerbeds, tidying up the vegetable plot, cutting back some of the hedges which had got a little overgrown.
As a few days turned into a week, then into two, Lily knew that sooner or later she was going to have to venture back out into the world.
The day she finally decided to do it was a rainy Monday halfway through September. She got dressed and came downstairs to find her Mum in gym shorts and a Reebok t-shirt being shouted at by a woman in combat fatigues on the TV.
‘Come on, worms, work harder!’ the woman hollered. ‘I can see you out there slacking off, stopping to sip your milk like a bunch of pansies. You know how you survive in the prison yard? Lift those knees higher!’
‘Would you like to join me?’ Sarah gasped, as Lily picked up a DVD case from the arm of the sofa and read, Doreen’s Prison Yard Boot Camp Volume 3.
‘I’ll be all right, but don’t give up, Mum. Doreen’s watching you.’
‘Coffee in the pot,’ Sarah gasped in response.
Her dad had already gone out to work, so Lily sat at the table with a coffee and a bowl of cornflakes, and read a copy of yesterday’s Daily Mail. Then, stealing herself, she headed for the front door.
It was drizzling a little, but nothing an umbrella, wellington boots, and a light raincoat couldn’t handle.
The nostalgia was almost too much as Lily made her way back up the road, pausing by the old phone box on the corner—now turned into a local art display and featuring a couple of her mother’s dreamcatchers and a little mural her dad had made out of broken pieces of glass glued onto plywood—remembering the years she had stood here for the school bus to take her into Brentwell, and the years before that when she had waited for Jimmy Donbury, the farmer’s son who lived further up the hill, and Christina Sinkins, who had lived down a street opposite. Every day for nearly five years the three of them had walked to school together, until eventually Christina’s family had moved up to Liverpool, and Jimmy, who was two years older, had gone to the local comprehensive, leaving Lily, by then nine, to walk to Willow River Primary—tucked in behind the church—for the last two years alone.
She walked on down the hill, the hedgerows and trees exactly as she remembered—although the Donburys had finally replaced a gate that had been collapsed and overgrown—even some of the same potholes in the road, where she had poked sticks and sometimes, in moments of kindness, filled with rocks from along the verge.
Wondering how much more she could handle, it was something of a relief to reach the car park and its lane that accessed the cycle path. She didn’t remember the branch line from when trains had still run—the line having closed in 2003, when she was just seven years old—but for most of her childhood it had been an impassible mass of brambles. A council initiative had turned it into a cycle path back in her mid-teens, at the same time turning Willow River into something of a tourist attraction. Uncle Gus’s guesthouse, which had once overlooked a railway line and a particularly dull section of river, suddenly found itself surrounded by picnic areas and viewing spots. In close proximity to the Willow River entrance and exit, Uncle Gus had needed to expand his restaurant and open up several rooms that had previously been filled with junk. What had once been a quiet B&B in the middle of nowhere was now something of a resort hotel for middle-aged couples extending themselves with a bit of countryside bike riding.
She crossed the little bridge at the bottom, where a new stop sign now stood and speed bumps to halt any boy racers looking to mow down a few cyclists, and headed up the hill into the little village. Her mother’s craft shop on the corner next to a café was closed, a sign over the door giving working hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The rain had got progressively heavier, and despite the taste of coffee still lingering on her tongue, Lily couldn’t resist going into the café, which had just opened, for a quick pit stop.
It was empty, but as she folded her umbrella and took off her jacket, a gasp came from behind her.
‘Huh. Well, I’ll never. Hello, stranger.’
Lily looked up. Behind the counter stood an older—and pregnant version—of a familiar face.
‘Mary? Mary Wilson? Is that you?’
‘It’s Mary Stone now.’ Mary smiled as she came out from behind the counter and waddled over to where Lily stood, shell-shocked, by the door. ‘But you were close enough.’
They shared a warm hug, and Lily felt the years shift again, taking her back to nights in the pub, and beyond that to school days, whispering about boys in the playground, proclaiming with complete certainty that Mrs. Davies had a dragon in the closet in their First Year classroom, tears as both slipped in the mud on a primary school forest walk, and cheers as their three-legged bundle came home first in the final race of their first school sports day.
Mary stepped back. She had aged, two kids and a third on the way having added years to her, but that old easygoing manner was still there. Her hair, tied back in a neat if unadorned ponytail, looked a little thinner, even with a premature strand or two of grey, but her eyes were bright with life and excitement.
‘You look well,’ Mary said. ‘Well, your eyes are a bit puffy and you’ve got a scratch on your chin. Oh, and tints in your hair. But you look like you live off cucumbers and carrots. Are you back for a visit or for longer?’
‘To be honest, I don’t know.’
‘Well, it’s chucking down, and it’s not likely to stop for a few hours. We’ll get old Mrs. Gregson in for her coffee about lunchtime, but most of the grockles will stay away. How about I get you a large coffee and you can catch me up while I struggle to stay awake on a pansy decaf?’
‘Sounds good.’
Mary waved Lily to a table near the counter, and the years rolled off both as they talked easily about the past. Friends since being forced to hold hands in the dinner queue in reception class, their lives had followed an easily meandering side-by-side course until they’d reached sixth form, where they had dramatically diverged. Lily had stayed and then gone on to university, never to return, while Mary had taken a horticulture course in Exeter college and then married one of her fellow students, who now managed a garden centre just outside of Brentwell. Her first boy, Sylvian, had been born when she was twenty, her second, Ryan, two years later. After a four year gap, she was hoping the next would be a little girl.
‘Ryan literally started school last week,’ Mary said, affectionately rubbing her stomach. ‘The first day, he really didn’t want to go. They had to practically drag him out of my arms. The second day, though, I couldn’t hold him back. He loves it now. He’s supposed to finish at lunchtime for the first term, but we signed him up for the after-school programme, so I go and pick the boys up at the same time, after Jan arrives to cover the afternoon.’ She leaned forward, cupping her chin on her hands. ‘So, what about you? Don’t tell me you haven’t got tons of guys after you. I did notice the depression on your ring finger. Did you forget to put it on?’
Lily closed her eyes for a moment. The hurt had eased over the last couple of weeks, but mentioning it directly was like pouring salt into an open wound.
