Page 54 of Autumn at the Willow River Guesthouse
‘Okay.’
Lily watched him as she counted on her fingers. His eyes never left hers. At eight she started to laugh. He lifted an eyebrow and began to laugh too.
‘No wonder time passes so quickly here,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t ten.’
‘It worked, though, didn’t it?’
Michael looked around him, then smiled. ‘I think it did. I’m Michael. Did I tell you that?’
‘Yes, you did.’
‘Thank you for getting in contact with me. Really, thank you.’
‘It was my pleasure. Your mother … she seems kind of sad. I just wanted to help her out a bit.’
‘It sounds like you did. And you helped me, too.’
‘Did I?’
Michael nodded. ‘I needed an excuse to come back. It’s been too long.’
‘Willow River?’
Their painstaking progress had taken them across the bridge, where another set of steps led down to the cycle path. Lily headed that way without thinking, then realised Michael had his bike. She looked back to see him carrying it over his shoulder with relative ease.
‘Sorry, it’s just I usually go this way. Up the path a little and then cut across the meadow outside the guesthouse. It’s quicker.’
‘Works for me.’
‘Isn’t that heavy?’
‘A little, but I can manage.’
Lily hurried down the steps, then waited at the bottom for Michael to come down. She reached out to help him with the rucksack that was dangling loose from his shoulder, her arm briefly touching his. She shivered, then immediately scolded herself for being such a teenager. She held the bag while he put the bike down, then held it out as he turned around.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
They sat down on a bench near the river without even thinking about it, Michael leaning his bike against one end, then sitting on the river’s side while Lily sat on the other.
‘I have so many great memories of this place,’ he said. ‘Life was pretty chaotic when I was a kid, but whenever we stayed here, things seemed to calm down. Are all the old guys still around? Jimmy? Mark? Christina?’
Lily felt a brief pang of jealousy at the mention of her old friend’s name, then remembered Christina had moved away when she was nine. A little early for a crush.
‘Some,’ she said. ‘Jimmy works up in the farm shop. ‘Mark … I don’t know where he went. Christina moved upcountry years back.’
‘A lot of people move on,’ Michael said. ‘I used to dream about coming back here. I always wondered what might have changed. The train being gone … that’s the big one. But much of it’s the same.’
‘And the cycle path is nice.’
‘I didn’t realise that it was the old train line until I saw the church.’
‘Did you come here often?’ Lily asked, feeling a little guilty for not remembering better. She was starting to realise how involved she had been during her London years, the intensity of her life pushing her past further away.
‘Most summers until I was twelve,’ Michael said. ‘I went to boarding school after that, then university. I stopped in a couple of times when I was passing through, but then I got busy with work, and you know how it is.’
Lily nodded. ‘You start to forget things.’
‘I should have thought mother might come back here. It just felt too obvious.’
