Page 23 of Autumn at the Willow River Guesthouse
Lily let out a sigh and headed upstairs. Victoria Borton was standing in the hallway, her bizarre outfit now adorned with a wide-brimmed hat, a single black rose pocking through a ribbon.
‘I thought you might have done the unthinkable and left,’ Victoria said.
‘No, I’m still here. And it’s Lily.’
‘No, it’s a rose,’ Victoria said, reaching up and touching the flower in her hat, before letting out a barrage of laughter which made Lily frown. ‘I painted it black, just for effect.’
‘If you don’t mind me asking, why are you dressed like Cruella de Vil?’
Victoria laughed again. ‘Quite observant of you, dear, although you’re a little misplaced with your assessment. I do appear quite the femme fatale, do I not?’
‘I’d be scared enough to run away if I wasn’t charged with collecting your breakfast things,’ Lily said.
‘Exquisite!’ Victoria cried, throwing her hands up in the air. ‘I need to get this down. Mandy, you may leave.’
‘Lily!’
‘Yes, yes, that works too.’
Victoria bustled back into the room and slammed the door. Lily, giving a bemused shake of her head, retrieved the hamper and headed back downstairs.
Aware she was on a free run for time, she fixed the hamper to the bike then decided to walk it back instead, allowing herself to flush the crazy old woman out of her mind, and to let the calming, peaceful nature back in. She found herself thinking of London, of whether or not she would respond to Steve, what she might say, even what she might do from here.
While London living and supporting Steve in his creative endeavours had taken a chunk out of her salary, she still had plenty left, and the idea of investing in a little café or tearoom in the peaceful surrounds of Willow River was something she couldn’t quite shake out of her mind. Having a borderline nutjob living upstairs might not work out quite so well, though.
Back at the guesthouse, Uncle Gus had left her a note pinned up in the kitchen, listingthe day’s jobs. He had apparently taken Aunt Gert to hospital to have her knee checked, meaning Lily, on only her second full day, had been left in charge.
If that was the case, perhaps she could allow herself a manager’s cup of coffee. There was some in a filter leftover from breakfast, so she reheated it in a microwave and wandered through to the little reception desk near the front entrance. She found a bell and a logbook of current and expected guests, as well as a computer. She switched it on, fully expecting it to require a password, but was surprised to find it went straight to a home screen, the icons set against a pretty wallpaper picture of the bridge across Willow River further up the valley. She hadn’t been online since fleeing London, but the internet icon beckoned her.
Feeling a sense of trepidation, she gave it a little click.
Her old social media accounts were still there, and Lily felt a little disappointed that so little had changed. Sure, there was a long list of the updates she would have previously cleared daily—or several times daily, if she were honest about it—but she was dismayed how little of it was of any relevance. There were a few interesting updates from her old work colleagues—one had been transferred to Spain, and another had—to Lily’s frustration—been promoted into Lily’s old position—but most were the same inane entries as before. Complaints about this and that, vague fishing posts inciting questions, pictures of food, small children, cats, shared memes or humourous photo galleries she had seen hundreds of times before, and all manner of other pointless stuff she now realised she had been happily living without.
Her email was slightly more interesting, with messages from her landlord, Steve’s landlord, the council, and Davidsons’ HR department. She was officially unemployed, homeless, but was no longer paying for Steve’s studio. There was also an email from the car garage, asking if she ever planned to pick up her newly repaired car. She sent a quick message back, asking them to sell it, and if they wanted to give her a share, to donate the money to a charity instead.
She also had a couple of job interview requests, much to her surprise after the hurry she had been in to apply. One was from a company that three months ago she would have jumped at the chance to work for, but after just two days of cycling along Willow River, she felt reluctant to swap the trees and fresh air for the glass and chrome of another tower block office. She replied, thanking them for the opportunity but saying that she had decided to take a bit of a sabbatical.
She was about to log off, when she found her fingers hovering over keys she would have once been excited to press.
Don’t do it, a little voice whispered.
She did it anyway, bringing up Instagram and pulling up Steve’s page. In the past it had featured endless shots of his current projects, and the growing number of his followers had actually made Lily a little jealous. However, she had been tempered by the occasional posts featuring herself, mentioned as his girlfriend and latterly as his wife-to-be, all of which had received significant interest and likes, as well as lots of nice comments. There had been a few bad ones—Steve was quite the hot property among young artists, much to Lily’s frustration—but Steve had been quick to delete anything too trolling.
Now, however, the first picture that came up was a shot of a new studio, with a beaming Steve standing extremely close to the woman Lily had seen in his old one. So close, that even by zooming in the picture, she couldn’t see any daylight between them, and one of his arms was suspiciously behind her, possibly around her back. Due to the lighting in that section of the picture, Lily couldn’t be a hundred percent sure.
In a new studio, with a new sponsor!—the caption read.
The comments were going off. New girlfriend? What a beautiful couple! I hope she’s not distracting you from painting! Hot stuff!
Steve had declined to reply to any of the posts, but Lily found herself scrolling through lists of likes, looking for any from Steve, or other accounts belonging to people she had once considered friends.
Her eyes were beginning to hurt before she realised how ridiculous she was being. She checked the posting date on the picture, and saw it was several days after the postmark on the letter she had received. Without a reply, perhaps Steve had moved on.
A chasm seemed to open up beneath her feet, and Lily felt her emotions draining away. Until now she had felt in control: all she had to do was reply and everything would be all right. Give it a little time for her anger to fade and for Steve to learn his lesson, and they’d be back on again. She still loved him, after all, and they had been due to marry next year.
Now, those lingering dreams felt crushed like a rotten lemon under her feet.
She almost fell off the chair when the bell over the front door pinged and a couple of people entered. Both women in their thirties, they had a nervous look about them. One had her hair tied back underneath a floppy hat, and wore a green Montbell rain jacket zipped up to her neck as though she had just returned from a moorland hike. The other wore a woolly hat with an orange bobble and spectacles, over a black sweater and jeans. She was clutching something to her chest, and Lily glanced at it, wondering if they belonged to that increasingly rare breed: female train enthusiasts. She was about to point out that the train had stopped running along this section of line several years ago, when the woman shifted and a familiar name became visible along the book’s top edge.
