Читать книгу Rosie’s Travelling Tea Shop - Rebecca Raisin - Страница 13

Am I off to an unlucky start choosing April Fool’s day as the beginning of my journey? Fools rush in, right? With my forehead pressed against the living room window I watch as rain lashes down on poor Poppy. Her windscreen is frosty and opaque, the wipers half-mast like eyes closed for sleep. So much for a sunny-skied spring – although the weather does match my mood.

Drenched Poppy, copping bucket loads of rain, seems solemn somehow. I know it’s the first sign of madness having affection for an inanimate thing, but I feel an affinity with her, perhaps because she is finally going to ferry me away from here, hopefully onto better, brighter things.

In the time since this whirlwind happened, Callum hasn’t called or visited once. All our discussions have been handled through lawyers. Lawyers. Grave and dull men with no spark in their eyes. They handle our case, the two opposing sides, as succinctly as possible. There’s a sterility to it all, and I can’t help marvel that life can change so devastatingly fast.

He’s agreed to buy out my share of the apartment, which comes to almost nothing since we’re still paying the interest on the debt and not much else, and I gave myself until today to embark on my new adventure.

As I gaze around our once happy home, the same old feelings claw at me. How could he discard me so quickly, so easily, as if I were rubbish? I don’t want to be alone, to be unsocial, to push people away, but I struggle making friends because there was never the time or the inclination.

This loneliness is deafening.

Getting away will broaden my horizons, give me some much-needed life experience, and I’ll find my place in the world. I’m aware of my downfalls. That need to retreat usually trumps everything else, and I can’t let it.

Hefting the last box from the tiny little south London flat Callum and I have shared for the last seven years, my heart shrinks once more.

With a lump in my throat, I shut the door and try my best not to think of my replacement – Khloe, a younger, perkier version of myself – moving in as soon as I move out.

As I walk to Poppy I feel boneless, like I’m going to fall, and no one will be there to catch me.

For the first time in fifteen years I won’t have to be at Époque this coming Friday ready for the three busiest days in the restaurant. This feels so alien, so foreign to me that of course I’m bound to feel a little jelly-legged.

‘Ready, Poppy?’ My voice breaks. I tap the side of the van before stowing a box inside and hopping up into the front seat. I freeze. What the hell am I doing, leaving London, leaving all I know?

I sit there catatonic for so long that one of my neighbours, old Mrs Jones, raps on the window, her face pinched, and asks if I’m waiting for the RAC.

A flush of embarrassment flares. I shake my head, and say, ‘Oh no, nothing like that. I’m just …’ Summoning courage, wondering if you can die from a shattered heart, the usual. ‘Waiting for the right time to leave.’

Old Mrs Jones shakes her head in that supercilious way of hers. She’s never liked me – doesn’t like the hours I keep, the way I stack the recycling, the fact I lock my letterbox, trivial things that leave me bamboozled. But over the years I’ve learned she’s like that with everyone, a little judgemental, a lot dramatic.

‘Well, off you go!’ she harries. ‘My daughter is on her way, and she could use this parking space. She has a baby, you know.’

I hold in a sigh. Everyone has a baby these days. Probably Khloe will have a baby that she and old Mrs Jones can bond over, cooing and speaking baby language. Best not to think of it.

‘Right,’ I say and start the engine, wondering if old Mrs Jones will make friends with Khloe. They can gossip together, just like she’s tried and failed with me, because I don’t care if the single guy in apartment four ‘plays those fecking video games with all the guns and the shooting at midnight!’ And I especially don’t care if the twenty-something in six wears ‘those trashy boots that go all the way up to her derrière as if she’s a lady of the night!’ Their lives have nothing to do with me. Perhaps she, Khloe and Callum can dine together at her infamous Monday night supper clubs, and whisper gleefully that they’re grateful I’m gone. Tears sting the back of my eyes and it feels like I might implode – I have to get out of here.

But my imagination runs wild and I visualise Mrs Jones sniping, ‘She’s an odd one that Rosie; always darting away from people like she’s got something to hide.’

I won’t miss old Mrs Jones.

With a deep breath, I pull out and tackle the traffic, ignoring a blast of horn and the wide-eyed look of a pedestrian who edged a little too close for comfort. How many hours of this do I have ahead?

I drive, well, sputter along in Poppy, clamping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turn white. London is difficult to navigate on foot at the best of times, but in Poppy it’s downright terrifying. My first rendezvous point is the camp in Bristol so I set my mind to achieving the goal of arriving there, not dead.

With grim determination, I manage to concentrate and also to ignore the sound of my pulse thrumming my ears by turning the music up. Like people, Poppy has her quirks: she backfires when she’s disgruntled as if she’s telling me off, and pulls sharply to the left if senses me veering this way and that.

It’s a learning curve, and we simply must get to know each other better. When I have a moment of panic, just the usual, WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS I THINKING, she drives straight and true as if she knows she must take control while I briefly lose my mind. Before long, I find my groove, and Poppy belches and squeaks as if urging me on.

Goodbye, London, hello … brand new, exciting life! I crank the music and a slow smile settles over my face. I’ve done it, I’ve really done it and a sort of pride creeps over me.