Читать книгу Letting You Go - Anouska Knight - Страница 13

Alex slowed for the approaching turnoff to Godric’s Gorge and the run of waterfalls after which the town was named. She knew the road by heart, how many dusty laybys there were to allow the occasional passing car making its way to or from the falls, the cluster of properties that lined the dusty track there and each of the families who lived in them. In one of those properties, the large cream farmhouse with the spindly wisteria her mum couldn’t get to grow right, Alex knew her dad would be awake already, drinking his morning coffee out on the front porch, smoking his first roll-up of the day. Alex let her hand hover over her indicator before settling it back onto the gear stick. She looked at the clock on the dashboard. The hospital ward wouldn’t let her in at six-thirty and Jem would probably still be sleeping up at the house, which wasn’t going to make conversation with her dad any easier.

Jem had accused her of being paranoid. Ted wasn’t awkward around Alex, he was just usually preoccupied, that was all. Running a garage by himself took a lot of energy, didn’t it? Easy for Jem to say, she always had something useful to contribute. Knew how to pull a conversation right out of him.

Alex automatically shifted up a gear and passed the turnoff for home. No point disturbing them this early. She followed the road down off the valley. Eilidh Falls high street was deserted, the only movement where great swathes of fabric in reds and golds fluttered lazily from the street lamps lining the road through the busiest part of town. Wait, was that a … ‘Bloody hell! There’s a huge dragon hanging off the Town Hall roof …’ Alex blurted.

Jem hadn’t been kidding. She’d told Alex about Mayor Sinclair’s ramping up of the annual Eilidh Viking Festival a few times but it had never appealed, not that Alex had really grasped just how far the town had taken to gearing up for the festival, loosely based on the arrival of marauding Vikings to the area some 1200 years before.

‘Viking Fest is gonna be a national treasure eventually, Al. Like the cheese rolling in Gloucester!’

Alex let her eyes follow an endless run of circular shields all along the old library gates as she drove past. ‘Flipping heck … It looks like something off the history channel … on acid.’

Alex let her foot off the accelerator to take a slower look at the settlement of re-enactment tents down by the riverbank. Were they supposed to be the Anglo-Saxon presence then? A few of the tents looked more regal than the others, Alex was trying to get a better view and draw on her sketchy Viking knowledge from her St Cuthbert’s Primary days when something black appeared like an ominous apparition at the front end of her truck.

‘Shit!’

Alex reacted, stamping on the brake, probably harder than was necessary. She bounced in her seat while the truck jarred to a halt around her. The eyes glaring back through the windscreen at her looked amused. Alex felt herself swallow and ready an apology for the burly gentleman in the business suit who’d just stepped straight off the kerb and directly into the bloody road in front of her, but something about his smile made her hesitate. She’d only been travelling at a jogging pace and wasn’t entirely convinced that his hands braced on her bonnet, cigarette still burning away where it was sandwiched between his knuckles, wasn’t a touch overly dramatic.

Alex looked up at his face again and was reminded of a gorilla. Large and unpredictable. He definitely didn’t look like a local, tourist probably, not that the suit made any sense. Alex had nearly gotten her sorry out when he grinned. He lifted his hands and brought two balled fists down hard on her bonnet. Alex flinched. He seemed to approve of her silly girlish movement. ‘You stupid tart. Watch where you’re going,’ he delivered, his Hollywood smile sharpening the words as they left his mouth. Alex’s mouth dropped open a little, a nervous thumping started in her chest as he pushed himself off her truck and casually strolled over to the black four-by-four parked across the street. Alex swallowed and found her voice again.

‘Nice,’ she muttered, once the ape was safely back inside his truck and definitely couldn’t hear her. Alex had a rule about confrontation. She didn’t do it. Jem was the sister for that. Jem wasn’t backwards in going forwards like Alex, she was made of tougher stuff. Jem would’ve smiled sweetly just then and flipped the horrible git the Vs. Jem wouldn’t have been intimidated, she’d singlehandedly confronted a group of teenagers once for calling Millie Fairbanks Clubfoot; the girl had no fear.

Alex began cruising again along the last of the high street. She drove steadily past her father’s garage still with its heavy arched wooden doors in blue keeping her eyes well and truly off the hardware shop opposite as if merely glancing there would constitute an act of total betrayal. She drove towards the little primary school with its bright hanging baskets and sunflowers grown spindly through the summer holidays, on past the adjacent church – also St Cuthbert’s – with its newly refurbished railings and worn stone path. Her mum had been round there last night, alone, slumped over in the churchyard before Mal Sinclair had found her. Alex’s throat tightened. The hospital was only another two miles beyond the bridge, it was hard to resist pressing down a little harder on the accelerator but this was the stretch of road where Millie Fairbanks had lost two inches off her left leg after Finn’s dad had signed their faulty car off.

Alex tried to take the incline of the old bridge in the wrong gear and the truck juddered around her in protest. She dropped it down to second. Ted reckoned you could always tell a local from an outsider on how slow they took the bridge. Bloody tourists, careering in and out like they own the place. Even over the ruckus in the pub on backgammon nights, Alex’s dad had said how they’d hear the screeching of tyres when some wazzock took the bridge too fast. Every time they heard the screech, Hamish would put a pound in the pot, ready for the next time he had to have his beer-garden wall rebuilt. ‘Someone is going to get themselves killed at the bottom of that bridge someday,’ Hamish liked to warn his patrons, ‘as if the Fairbanks girl hadn’t come close enough.’

Alex took the bridge cautiously. The Old Girl and the rest of Eilidh high street fell away in her rear view mirror, Alex’s shoulders releasing a little the more the bridge shrank into the distance. A light twinkling of morning sun on water held Alex’s attention on the disappearing view. It made her feel sorry to leave it back there without a proper look, it wasn’t often she thought the Old Girl pretty. She had time for a little look.

Alex pulled over onto the side of the road in case she nearly killed anyone else before breakfast and shut the engine off. Her door cranked outwards like an arthritic hip. She sat there for a few moments with her feet on the cool earth outside the truck. It was so quiet here. Alex held her face to the sky. The air felt lighter up here in the Falls, lighter than it did back in the city anyway. Cleaner. Good for the soul. She’d taken it for granted as a child. She wanted to inflate herself with it now, purify herself with it. Alex clambered from her truck before even questioning herself and slammed the door shut behind her. The morning sun was spreading its greeting along the river catching like crystals on its changing surface. She’d spent so much energy distancing herself from this place, she’d almost forgotten its beauty.

Alex took in the view back towards the river where it cut past Hamih’s pub. You used to play Pooh sticks off that bridge with Jem, Dill Pickle. Alex would invigilate while Mum and Dad watched from The Cavern’s beer garden.

She missed him so much it ached. She missed Dill too.

None of the self-help articles ever said what to do about her dad. There wasn’t a fear ladder for that, no psychological tool that would make her apology substantial enough to brave offering it again.

You’re not here for that. You’re here for Mum. And then you’ll be gone again. Out of his way.

Alex shook off her inner monologue. She always became the same useless wimp when it came to Ted, that was a given, but Alex had decided on the drive up here that she would at least shuffle up a couple more rungs of her self-help strategy while she was here. She was going to pay a visit to an old adversary. The Old Girl looked welcoming now, winsome and pretty, just as she had been a thousand times before on still summer mornings such as this. Perfectly safe, if you chose the right spot.

Alex shuddered. That was a few rungs up yet. The Old Girl was right at the top, the end goal. She was going to wade into the Old Girl one day and she was going to do it without becoming a dithering wreck. Just like that. Tra-la-la. Alex quivered a little at the prospect. One step at a time, Dr Phil said. She could start up at the plunge pools, in the shallows. Alex found herself drifting away with her thoughts. Yes, before leaving the Falls again, she was going to achieve something. She was going to stand in the plunge pools up to her knees. That was the benchmark, that was something realistic she could aim for, a rung she could climb.

Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing, she reassured herself.

She’d seen an allegedly phobic woman on Oprah say this, again and again like a magical spell of protection while someone had steadily placed a boa constrictor around the woman’s sweaty neck. Alex had watched intently and the woman hadn’t even blinked. The not blinking thing wasn’t as impressive as having a snake near her windpipe though, in fairness.

Alex watched the sparkles on the water. ‘Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing,’ she said aloud. It felt strange. Liberating. She’d read that in the Climb your fear-ladder article too. Face your fears and assertively tell them, ‘No! I will not be a slave to you any more!’

She locked eyes on the riverbank. ‘No’, she said in a small voice, ‘I will not—’

This was ridiculous. She was losing her mind. Alex let out a little laugh. Then she cleared her throat and tried it again. All this clean air was flushing something out of her, it felt kinda good. And weird. ‘Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing!’ she called, louder this time. The wall of evergreens called back with a small echo. There were only squirrels and, rumour had it, a headless ghost she might disturb back here. Sod it, call it coffee jitters but she was going to go for it. She’d see a car coming a mile off before anyone would hear.

She took another lungful. ‘AIN’T NO THING BUT A CHICKEN WING ON A STRING—’

‘From … Burger King?’

Alex snapped her head round to her right side. Her heart hurt, like it had a stitch. It might actually have just stopped.

The mud was the first thing. New toffee-coloured mud spattered across his jaw. She glanced up and down, scanning him for possibility.

Oh God. Oh my God.

Another pain in Alex’s chest. She felt the beating in there fire up again on all cylinders. This was why kids pedalled stories of headless ghosts in the forest, the mulchy floor spongy enough that any person with a half-decent pair of trainers and a degree of athletic grace (that was Alex out then) could suddenly, soundlessly appear from the woods and scare the crap out of you.

Finn looked stunned too.

Alex didn’t know where to look. The mud was a running theme. His trainers were caked in the stuff, so were the calf muscles glistening with tiny beads of sweat. He hadn’t been a runner in his youth. He hadn’t been so defined, either. She tried to take him all in. His chest was heaving beneath his t-shirt, fervently but steady, like a racehorse. A thin white wire trailed down from the headphones either side of his face giving the rise of his chest a glancing blow on its descent to one of the pockets of his jogging bottoms. Joggers cut off at the knees. He wasn’t just a runner now, he was a hardcore runner.

Alex was dumfounded. ‘You’ve … changed colour.’ Her voice caught in her throat. Maybe he didn’t notice. He’d appeared from the trees as fluently as he did in her sleep. Alex swallowed, her heart already migrating to her mouth. Finn gave a gentle yank and sent the earplugs tumbling towards his waist.

He looked down at himself. ‘I guess that would be mostly the mud.’

It wasn’t the mud, it was adventure seeking in the southern hemisphere while Alex had been making vats of chilli con carne at the food bank. He probably smelled of coconut oil and ylang ylang now, she usually smelled of fried onions and disinfectant. His hair had changed colour too, lighter at its edges than it was. It still sat long just over his ears but it looked more deliberate now, like he’d just fallen off a billboard advertising surfboards, or cranberry juice, or something full of antioxidants.

‘You haven’t changed colour.’ He smiled. ‘Still a striking red head.’ Alex cringed at her own statement. ‘Well, actually you look a little less red than the last time we spoke if I remember right.’ He offered a half-hearted smile.

She was going to die. Right here on the spot. The last time they’d spoken had been in her student bedroom. Trying to be quick, efficient, like ripping off a plaster, hadn’t worked. There had been nothing clean and clinical about it. Just lots of arguing and hurt. And red faces, obviously.

‘Actually, you look a little pale, Foster. Are you OK?’

She hadn’t heard her name on his lips since the last moments before watching him walk away through the snow. Be kind to yourself, Foster, he’d said. Because not having the balls to go home and tell her dad about them sure as hell wasn’t being very kind to Finn.

Alex swallowed again. Finn’s breath was levelling off but hers was becoming shallower. She felt a bit fuzzy, actually.

‘I, er. Actually just, I erm … just tired, actually. Long drive.’

Finn’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t want his eyes to narrow, he was always working something out when he did that.

‘Jem said you don’t come back here. Don’t they have fast food where you live now?’ Nope, he’d lost her. ‘Burger King, wasn’t it?’ Alex cringed. The woman on Oprah hadn’t sounded like such a muppet when she’d said it. ‘Or have you come back for a run in one of the most beautiful spots in the world? It’s some morning, isn’t it?’

She felt a hand rub up the back of her neck and realised it was her own. Stop that, you’re not a child.

‘No, no … definitely not a runner. Or prolific burger eater.’ She smiled feebly.

‘But you do come back up here to the Falls though? Evidently.’

Oh God, this conversation felt like swimming. In through the nose, out through the mouth …

‘Yeah, um, not really. It’s difficult with work and stuff and …’

‘Work?’

‘Yep. I erm, work with disadvantaged people.’ Disadvantaged people? Nice one, Alex. She wasn’t exactly in the Peace Corps. Don’t try to impress him, you plonker. He’s travelled the world!

‘Disadvantaged people? Must keep you busy.’

Alex laughed a laugh that didn’t belong to her.

‘I thought when you left your university degree, you’d find another course somewhere?’

‘Ah, no.’ Alex batted the notion away, a silly childhood whimsy. ‘No I didn’t, actually. I er, I left uni for good.’

‘I know.’ He said matter-of-factly. ‘That’s too bad. Your work, all through college, I mean … you have a gift, Foster.’ He shrugged.

Alex swallowed again. Only her mother said that. Have. Not had. As if there was still discernible potential in her somewhere. Alex looked at her shoes, embarrassed if anything. Mum would’ve loved this, this meeting of theirs in the forest like two star-crossed nymphs, back when Blythe’s heart would have been still up for the excitement. Reality thudded home. ‘Actually, I have to go. I need to get to the hospital.’

The look on Finn’s face switched immediately. ‘Are you OK, Foster?’

‘Oh, no … I didn’t mean … it’s Mum. She er, she had a stroke last night.’ The words seemed to double back in her mouth and head straight back down her throat, clenching her heart in an angry fist. Suddenly there was a lump forming at the back of Alex’s throat, she could feel it coming. Don’t cry! Shit! Alex, if you cry now he’ll comfort you and then you’ll be dripping snot into his muddy chest before you know it and it’ll be all over.

‘I’m sorry, Foster. Is there anything I can do?’ Finn’s hand reached out for a second and grazed Alex’s elbow. Their skin touched briefly and she very definitely felt it, the same as before, exactly as Blythe would always describe it.

It felt like lightning.