Under a Starry Sky: A perfectly feel-good and uplifting story of second chances to escape with this summer 2020!

by Laura Kemp

  And so she’d been on the receiving end of good wishes wherever she’d turned. Alis at Coffee on the Corner had cried, ‘At last! Don’t you go getting fancy tastes, mind. I’ve only just got the hang of soya lattes!’. Geoffrey at GoBooks had quoted something in Latin at her, but with a smile, so she’d guessed it was congrats. Only one was less than convincing: Phil the Pill, so-called because he was the pharmacist, who, along with a pair of deep vein thrombosis socks for the flight, gave her a wet-eyed ‘Well done!’ because he’d finally realised she would never say yes to a date.

  Whether it was the charity-shop volunteers calling to her as she passed, Amir from Keep Calm and Curry On asking who’d be his best customer now, the butcher boys giving her the thumbs up or the staff at Oh My Cod parcelling up her fish and chips, the support was enormous. Partly because life was quite samey here and this was out of the ordinary, it was also because her ambition to travel was part of their version of Wanda. These people, who were both shopkeepers and friends, saw it as inevitable; like a feel-good next chapter of her story. It was meant to be: after all, it had been in the making for years.

  It had been inconceivable that she would go away after she’d lost her father and her home in the fire. Mam and Carys had fallen to pieces and Wanda had somehow propelled herself through it to take care of them. She’d kept tears at bay, busying herself with funeral arrangements, and had watched the entire village overcome with grief when it emerged that Ryan had been found dead and red-handed at the scene. Worrying about money while the insurance was processed, Wanda had abandoned backpacking and uni to stay at Get Lost. As Carys got on with her education and Mam worked herself into the ground to rebuild the campsite, Wanda got her travelling kicks from booking others’ holidays. Still she wouldn’t leave, though – her sister and mother needed her. The years flew and before she knew it, she was shop manager and a mortgage payer with a flat in the village. The desire to see the world remained, though – so when Glanmor retired to Spain two months ago, selling up the once-thriving, now-dying business because the industry no longer relied on footfall but internet sales, she decided this was her opportunity. ‘It’s what Dad would’ve wanted,’ she’d say, echoed by Glanmor, who had encouraged her to fulfil her dream. Inside, Wanda’s grief remained a rock in her belly. Anger too, at Annie, who refused to condemn her brother, and at Lew.

  She’d never seen him again after the fire – he hadn’t come back to say goodbye that night and he’d left the next morning. He had messaged and tried to call, but in the fog of devastation, she’d been numb, wanting nothing to do with anyone. He’d sent his apologies for missing the funerals because he couldn’t afford to fall behind on his course. Deeply hurt, she let time pass and reviewed his declaration of love as false; as him trying it on. As for Annie, she had married Dean and moved away, no doubt to escape the shame. Neither of Wanda’s two oldest friends had figured in her adult life.

  Back in January, around the time she’d discovered Get Lost was closing, Wanda had found out Annie was moving back to Gobaith and Lew had bought The Bunkhouse to turn it into a hostel for hikers, overseeing it from East Anglia, the flattest place you could get, which was ironic for a man of the mountains. Privately, that was another reason why Wanda had decided to follow her heart. The thought of seeing Annie or hearing about Lew’s project was too painful. Publicly, though, she said nothing about them, merely that the time was right to go. Having badgered her for years to do it, Mam and Carys were thrilled for her: they were a team of their own. Carys, who still lived at home, ran the mud-and-wellies manual side of the business, while Mam did the books.

  So tomorrow she was off. Wanda heaved her rucksack onto her back as she took a last look round her near-empty flat, which was up for rental from next week. She’d shifted her stuff into boxes and up to Mam’s and there was nothing left to do but lock up. Down the stairs, she wobbled onto the pavement, where she nearly barged into Sara, who was shutting Gobaith Gifts, which sat below Wanda’s place.

  ‘You taking the kitchen sink then, lovely?’ Sara said, gasping at Wanda’s wide and heavy load.

  ‘This, would you believe, is the pared down version of kit!’ Wanda grimaced, her hips already aching from the weight of her bag.

  ‘I think I’d die without my home comforts,’ Sara said. Her straight blonde long bob, black jumper and skinny cigarette trousers made her look every inch the winner of the Most Stylish Shop in the annual high street awards – for six years running. ‘I almost did during my year out.’ She shuddered at the memory. ‘The grubby hostels and strangers’ pubes in the showers, they made me realise I wasn’t cut out to be a bohemian artist. Glad I got it out of my system though, it’s important to find these things out about yourself …’

  How reassuring. Wanda had increasingly found herself awake at 3 a.m. wondering if her filtered fantasy would live up to the true grit of the experience. While she worked in travel, how prepared was she really when she’d only ever holidayed in Europe and most of her clients had been of a certain age, either heading to Whitby on a coach or a fortnight on the Algarve?

  ‘Oh, I’m going to miss you!’ Sara hugged her and gave a final squeeze of her hand. ‘What am I going to do without our Wine and Woe Wednesdays upstairs? Who am I going to share a curry with and moan at about life, the universe and men?’

  As much as she’d had a skinful of village life, Wanda was sad to be leaving Sara.

  ‘I’ll be back before you know it!’ she sang. ‘I’ve got to go; last supper at Mam’s.’

  Wanda set off up the high street. It was a typical early evening in March, the crisp and cold made her chest tight – and then the air was squeezed out of her when she saw what had become of Get Lost. The jaunty red sign, underlined with an aeroplane and its vapour trail, had gone last week and, ever since, workmen had been hammering away inside. Everyone knew it was going to be a hardware store; they’d all pictured an old-fashioned Aladdin’s cave of drawers filled with hooks and nails and staff with waxed moustaches and aprons. But this … it looked like a discount pound shop! The windows were cluttered with a riot of colourful plastic tubs, garden pots, steel bins, pegs, brooms, cheap toys, T-shirts, camouflage netting and God knows what else. And why was it called Fork Handles? If this was a reflection of the owner, he was sure to be an absolute crazy mess of a man.

  What would Glanmor make of it, she wondered. He’d be horrified … then again, would he even care now he was in Spain with the early heat of spring, knowing Gobaith was still being bitten on the arse by winter? And really, why should she care either; she’d soon be in her flip-flops. Instead, she braced herself for the solid ten-minute uphill march to her Mam’s house and went through her itinerary.

  As the high street faded into fields and farms bathed in a glorious red sunset, Wanda laughed as she remembered how easy she’d thought it would be to pick a route. Stick her on the spot and she could reel them off – clockwise or anticlockwise, overland or by air. When it came to the reality, it hadn’t been so straightforward. At eighteen, it had been simple: Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia for beaches, extreme sports and even more extreme drinking.

  But now that she looked forward to nights in and drank wine priced more than a fiver, she couldn’t think of anything worse.

  Then there was the cost – she couldn’t afford to go to one-hundred-and-eighty-odd countries, not without a private jet.

  There was also the time factor: a year was the ideal, but within the week of Wanda’s bombshell, Carys had had some news, so it was six months max. Wanda wasn’t going to miss out on becoming an aunty. Especially when the father had no idea he was going to be one. Carys and dark-and-handsome Danny had met in December when a bunch of city lads from Manchester had come in a convoy of camper vans to the campsite for an outdoorsy stag do. After hitting it off at first sight, then over drinks in the pub, where they hogged the jukebox with their love of nineties grunge, they spent the night together and wav
ed each other goodbye, promising to stay in touch. Only recently had Carys confessed the cock-up that followed – she felt embarrassed she’d tried to play it cool and she hadn’t wanted to drop Mam in it. It turned out he’d tried to give her his number but because she hadn’t wanted to seem too keen, she’d said she’d find it in the booking details. Except it wasn’t there, and neither was his address or surname or anything. Just ‘campervan x six’. Under questioning, it came to light that Mam hadn’t been on top of things, what with Christmas coming and the end of the season. The adventure company wouldn’t give out the party’s details; Facebook threw up nothing, and where did you start looking when all the detail you had was Daniel Platt, call-centre worker, and, according to Carys, the perfect man? Carys had insisted she would keep the baby. Which turned into babies at the twelve-week scan, at which Carys nearly ripped Wanda’s arm from her socket in disbelief when they heard two heartbeats. Wanda had refrained from asking if Carys regretted abandoning her ‘let love wait’ teenage days.

  It had been a traumatic time for her, especially with morning sickness to contend with. But with the grainy ultrasound photos pinned to the fridge, and having named them Rock and Roll, Carys kept the faith – what was meant to be would be, and that included the hope that she’d find him. Wanda wasn’t so sure; there were stories of people pretending to be somebody else, giving fake names and identities, just to get a leg over. She hadn’t said as much, but she had told Carys that if she wanted her to stay around, she could delay her trip. Carys wouldn’t hear of it – she had Mam, and tons of friends.

  With that law laid down, Wanda devoted herself to her expedition. And she encountered so much more than she’d bargained for. Did she go the way of a bucket list, ticking off all the big beasts of Niagara Falls and New York, the Taj Mahal and Thailand, the Great Wall of China and the Great Barrier Reef, the Sydney Opera House and Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro? Or did she go off the beaten track and look for hidden gems?

  It became obvious over hours of self-examination – not to mention drunken chats with anyone who’d listen – that this wasn’t about where to go but rather who she was and what she wanted out of it. To know that, she had to first work out what she didn’t want. She wasn’t eighteen any more, when she’d been set on happy hours, BFFs and sharing a dorm. Now, in her just-about early thirties, Wanda wanted to learn things, have an authentic journey – and snap a billion pictures to put up on her Instagram account, @WandaLust, which had zero posts so far because what was there to photograph round here?

  And so tomorrow she’d fly to Colombia for a three-week course to learn Spanish, head down to Buenos Aires to be taught the tango, volunteer on a community project in Chile, hang out on a South Pacific beach, get to grips with yoga and surfing in Indonesia, take a class in Indian street food in Kerala and finish off in a last blast of shopping in Moroccan souks. And if the fancy took her, she could add on destinations and take a few detours. Perhaps she’d end up living somewhere exotic. Maybe the next time she was here she’d be packing up for a new life … Wanda’s heart pounded with excitement all the way to the turn in the narrow lane where a piece of wood against the hedgerow announced in Mam’s painted handwriting, Campsite This Way. Coming here always caught in her throat. It was a place of laughter and life, where she and Carys had been born, the scene of long happy summers playing with the kids of campers and winters when the lake would freeze and the air nipped your nose. But still she saw Dad’s ghost everywhere.

  She went over the sheep grid and up the gravel drive, knowing now, at dusk, how the darkening sky would swallow the mountain, reducing it to its actual official status of just a hill – much to the locals’ irritation, the peak fell short of two-thousand-foot mountain status by mere inches. She’d once loved those slopes, but after the fire, she had only ever viewed them with loathing.

  Letting herself in to the restored grey-bricked farmhouse, she flopped her rucksack down in the hall and called out, ‘It’s me!’ There was only silence though: no lights were on and neither was there the smell of Mam’s lasagne. How odd. She went back out and saw the Land Rover was still there. Where could they be? She wandered into the garden, around the near-empty campsite field, where just two tents were pitched, past the shower block and found nothing. Back to the house she went and she began to run when she heard her phone ringing. She got there just in time to catch her sister’s call. Carys was bound to be saying they’d only have been up the road feeding someone’s cat or putting some chickens away for the night.

  ‘Hiya, Caz!’ Wanda said, moving into the kitchen and switching on the light. ‘I’m here. At home. Where have you two—’

  ‘Wanda,’ Carys interrupted, ‘don’t panic, but we’re in the hospital.’

  ‘What? Oh God,’ Wanda clutched her chest, ‘is it the babies?’

  ‘It’s not me, Wanda. It’s Mam.’

  ‘Mam? Oh no!’ Wild thoughts raced through her head – losing a parent in a tragedy made you doubly fearful for the surviving one.

  ‘She had a fall at home, she was trying to change a light bulb, it’s a suspected hip fracture. She’s fine, on pain relief, we’re waiting for X-rays then we’ll know more probably tomorrow.’

  Relief swept through her. ‘So she’s not dead?’

  ‘No!’

  Wanda was embarrassed that she’d revealed her default trait of expecting the worst; this was a hangover from Dad being taken from them too early. Feeling defensive, she went on the attack.

  ‘Why didn’t you leave a note? Or ring me?’ she snapped.

  ‘Because it all happened in a flash, the ambulance came and then off we went, and I didn’t want you to do … this.’

  ‘Do what?’ Wanda felt her hackles rising further.

  ‘Go into a fluster, get all worked up, assume it would be the end of the world, as you tend to do.’ Carys could be infuriatingly calm.

  ‘Hang on …’ Wanda stopped. This wasn’t the time to have a row about what she tended to do or not to do. She took a breath and then spoke. ‘Never mind. I’ll be there now.’

  With that, Wanda grabbed Mam’s nightie, toothbrush and her bedside photo of Dad, then scooped up the keys to Mam’s spluttering old 4x4 from the dusty silver bowl in the hall and left without giving a thought to her rucksack in the hall.

  2

  PS. It might be an idea to have someone on duty in the evenings as no one was around to help when the loo roll ran out.

  The Smiths, Birmingham

  Campsite Visitors’ Book

  ‘You can still go, you know,’ Carys said over a midnight cup of tea at the kitchen table.

  ‘I’m going nowhere. I told you.’ Wanda rolled her shoulders, done in from the dash to hospital, the trauma of seeing Mam looking so vulnerable in a threadbare gown and the concentration of the ride home in the pitch black through wet, winding country roads in a downpour so heavy it had been raining knives and forks.

  ‘But your trip …’ Carys said with anguish.

  ‘What about it?’ Wanda sighed.

  ‘You’ve waited so long to go.’ Carys’s arm cradled her belly as if she was trying to protect her babies from the disappointment.

  ‘It won’t do any harm to wait a bit longer then, will it?’ Wanda gave her a big-sister smile to convince her. ‘It’s all insured.’

  ‘So you can go in a few weeks then! When Mam’s better.’ Satisfied with her conclusion, Carys tucked her blonde bob behind her ears, looking so much younger than twenty-nine.

  ‘Yes! Now stop worrying and take yourself and Rock and Roll to bed. I’ll tidy up here.’

  Wanda held her calm composure until Carys had disappeared up the stairs and then dropped her head in her hands. A few weeks? There was no way she would be able to leave that soon. From the second she’d had the phone call, she’d known her plans were finished: not in a self-indulgent way but in a simple fact of acceptance, which was un
derlined when she’d seen her mother groggy from pain relief and heard the diagnosis.

  Mam was going to need some time to recover from her broken hip – the operation would take its toll and there’d be months of physio. But that was just the shark’s fin of it – Carys would need support too and Mam wouldn’t be up to it while she was getting her strength back. Twins would take it out of Carys physically and then there was the emotional side of facing parenthood, most likely, alone.

  Still smarting from Carys’s accusation that she was a drama queen, Wanda had swallowed hard every time her heart raced up her throat, telling herself it was big-girl-pants time. But now she was alone she was overcome by the position she was in. And, damn it, her sense of catastrophe was having a riot. Because the campsite was in an absolute mess. That was the third and most troubling thing. Worst of all, Wanda hadn’t even noticed it until now.

  Mam’s mistake over Danny Platt’s booking details should’ve flagged it up, but Wanda had put it down to the stress of the run-up to Christmas. She kept her nose out of the business, too, because it was Carys’s and Mam’s responsibility. Then, since January, she’d been preoccupied with organising her travels.

  It was only when they’d come back to the farmhouse to find a note from the campers asking for loo roll – such an obvious requirement to be overlooked – that Wanda had stopped to look around her. The kitchen was in even more chaos than normal. Mam had never been a tidy person; she was too busy living. Yet now the paperwork pile was taller and stuffed with red bills, the dust on the cobwebs had grown fingers and no surface was visible beneath the clutter of odds and sods.

  She’d thought back to when she’d gone looking for Mam and Carys and then it registered that the garden was overgrown, the campsite field wasn’t clipped and tidy but sprawling with weeds. When she’d nipped out to replenish the toilet roll while Carys put the kettle on, she’d been stunned to see the showers were mouldy. A scroll through the visitors’ book revealed that while everyone loved the big Welsh welcome, they were less than impressed with the facilities and surroundings.