by Lucy Knott
They spent the afternoon with Ella, the owner of The Vintage Bookshop, who Florence learnt had become well acquainted with Jo since he had been back at the camp and popped in whenever he had a spare minute. She was a lovely woman, with mystic brown eyes, tight black curls, which were styled into two bunches atop her head, and a cheerful disposition. She wore a stylish tea dress with a hummingbird print and the coffee mug that was glued to her hands read: “professional bookworm”. Florence and Ella became fast friends and Ella didn’t bat an eyelid when after sitting peacefully reading for an hour, Jo and Florence stood up to act out a scene from Pride and Prejudice, dancing in and out of the bookshelves. By the time the clock struck five, Ella was shooing Florence and Jo out the door while insisting they return the next day to provide her with more entertainment.
They both promised they would as Jo bowed while Florence curtsied out the door.
‘Oh no,’ Florence gasped after Ella had locked the door. ‘We need cleaning supplies and food, but cleaning supplies should probably come first.’ She held her finger in the air to articulate her thought. Jo grabbed at it playfully before pulling her along. They quick-marched to the corner shop, making it just in time before their five-thirty close, to pick up what they needed.
With mops and buckets in tow, they then retreated to the Crown Vic Pub to refuel before their trek back to camp. Florence hadn’t been able to resist the smell of Yorkshire puddings and crispy golden potatoes wafting through the pub’s garden. It turned out Jo too was a fan of a mouth-watering roast.
Eleven
It was Florence’s third day of her week-long vacation and what a surprisingly lovely time she was having. At first, she hadn’t thought it was possible. With the worry over leaving her nanna and the stress of finding a new job, among other things, she didn’t think she could or should enjoy her stay, but many of her woes had been alleviated with every conversation she had with Jo, every game they played together and the cleaner they got the old barn. There remained a slight niggle of guilt over the fact that she wasn’t actually all that upset about not having to return to sitting behind a desk all day, but that guilt was lessened by her determination to seek more joyful employment in a field that she enjoyed once she returned home.
There was also the matter of the two voices battling in her head over trusting Jo. One was telling her that she couldn’t trust him, not when she had known him a mere forty-eight hours. There was the shouting at his grandad, the daggers from Sal and oddly the evil glares aimed in his direction she had witnessed from some of the villagers yesterday. She had been having such a wonderful time that she tried to pay no mind and brush it off, for she was accustomed to the snide looks from others, but her mind had taken note all the same. Then there was the other voice telling her that there was nothing wrong with Jo. It scolded her for trying to sabotage her new friendship on the premise that it was terrified. The latter was currently gaining momentum after Jo had opened up about his mum yesterday. Initially after spending those first few hours with Jo upon her arrival to the camp, she had assumed him to have had a magical, creative upbringing surrounded by these lush fields and an overflowing bookshelf with parents who loved him, like most of the kids she had grown up with. She had never expected the story that he disclosed. On hearing it she felt that tug of a kindred spirit and encouraged her brain not to overthink. She was on holiday after all.
‘Jo, what does your castle in the sky look like?’ Florence asked, as she swept the floor while Jo prepared a soapy bucket of water on the other side of the window where there was an outdoor tap.
‘Ahh, the brilliant mind of Louisa May Alcott,’ Jo replied in an inspired tone, taking his eyes off the bucket, and glancing up at the clouds. Florence smiled down at her brush. ‘I would propose a pirate ship so I could sail through the sky and roam as I do now, and in my roaming, I will find my great novel,’ he added quietly, getting back to the bucket, and turning off the tap.
‘You wouldn’t settle?’ Florence queried feeling something inside her shift. It wasn’t something she could place quite yet, though she did worry about Jo and believed that he wasn’t answering all that truthfully. For someone who had spent his life in foster care, Florence had imagined his castle to be one filled with consistent love and family, a place that provided him what his mum never could, but then maybe she was projecting her ideals on to him. But there was just something about his distracted eyes that suggested otherwise.
‘Me? No,’ came Jo’s short and mumbled reply. This only confirmed to Florence that she might not be projecting after all. As she sensed from Jo’s eyes, he was keeping his castle locked and guarded.
‘I would own a theatre and I would teach little kids, and my nanna would be healthy and live forever in my castle,’ Florence professed. The words seemingly finding their way out into the open without fear. Sometimes she couldn’t quite tell if it was Jo or Camp Calla Lily that was helping her find her voice. Florence studied the tiny specs of debris she had collected into a pile with the brush and bit her lip. A little voice in the back of her mind spoke up of a love and family of her own but she quickly shushed that voice, much preferring the safety net of the castle she had shared with Jo, for teaching children was much more achievable than finding love.
‘What about your parents? What about a family?’ Jo asked, coming to stand by the window. Florence couldn’t fault Jo’s questioning or be insulted that he was insinuating all women wanted a family, when she had asked him the very same thing.
Florence found herself frozen for a moment. She stared at Jo contemplating the pieces of him that hid behind the fog in his eyes. Her skin shivered with goose bumps as she felt a sort of kinship pass between them, like maybe the something he wasn’t saying was very much the same as the something she didn’t know quite how to express or deal with herself. That the idea of love and of having a family of her own one day seemed not just impossible but downright terrifying. Florence could understand how Jo growing up in foster care and his mum doing what she had done could cause his mind to be wary of love, but she wondered if there was more. He was handsome and kind. Did he have someone like Olivia pushing him to date all the time with no luck, it only causing more harm than good? Did he have a temper like she had heard from George’s office? Florence stayed with that thought for minute, then shook it away. She didn’t feel Jo to be mean, even with his eyes currently hazy and not their usual clearness, they appeared kind and inviting. As she looked to his lips, she was reminded of the question he had innocently asked moments ago. ‘What about your parents?’
Florence felt exposed at Jo’s questioning, almost like he could read the deepest depths of her mind that she tried so hard to bury, but that was silly, for he did not know anything of her past; innocence was all it was. Brushing the dirt onto the dustpan she tipped it into a bin bag they had tied around one of the window ledges before moving to sweep a different spot. Her conversation with Jo from yesterday drifted through her mind. He had been so open about his mum when talking to her in the village and the barn felt like a safe space where she didn’t feel pressure to give all herself away but little bits each day felt comfortable and right, and so Florence took a deep breath and spoke.
‘My parents died when I was five. We were driving back from our holiday here, coming around one of the country bends when another driver hit the passenger’s side, spinning us off the road. He was exceeding the speed limit, not paying attention to the road because he was talking on his phone.’ She paused, her voice trembling, but she held it steady, finding that now she had started talking she needed to get it all out. My mum died instantly, and my dad ended up in hospital with a concussion, two broken collarbones and a broken leg. He could have pulled through and he would have pulled through if it hadn’t been for his broken heart. He overdosed on morphine two weeks after he came home, unable to cope with the loss of my mum.’
Florence had not seen Jo jump through the window, for her vision was blurry and her cheeks soaked with tears. It took her a
moment to realise that Jo’s arms were wrapped around her shoulders and she was resting her head against his chest as she heaved loud, heavy, and painful sobs. These were the tears of someone who had held this secret in since the day she had watched her dad’s coffin being lowered into the ground next to her mum’s. She had been just a small child who wouldn’t leave her nanna’s side and so not attending the funerals had not been a choice. She had nobody else to look after her. She hadn’t quite understood what was going on, but she could feel the pain in her chest where it had felt as if she had a giant hole. The world seemed black, dull, and dreary. Where once the world around her was full of people laughing and talking, on this day everywhere she looked people had their heads down, tears fell down their cheeks and she couldn’t find a single smile.
It was like the world had fallen into silence when Florence stopped sniffing, except for a slight beating sound. As her cries quietened and her shoulders stopped shaking, her ears pricked up to the peace that engulfed her, and from where her head lay, she recognised the small sound to be the beat of Jo’s heart. For a moment she allowed herself to feel comfort in this intimate embrace, but a moment is fleeting and was all she could manage. She stepped back and removed her glasses to wipe down the lenses, before she looked up at Jo with puffy eyes. ‘I feel like a theatre production of Annie wouldn’t go amiss right now.’ She smirked, wiping at her nose, and shaking her head to dispel the vulnerability she had just bared. Jo hastily wiped at his eyes and looked away up at the sky through the cracks in the wood. Besides her nanna, Florence had never cried in front of anyone before, let alone with someone. The tears in Jo’s eyes made her feel less fragile.
Then without warning, Jo picked up his mop and burst into a rendition of “It’s a Hard-Knock Life” while prancing around the barn and covering the floor with soapy bubbles. Laughter exploded from Florence with the same enthusiasm that the tears moments ago had; causing her to double over in stitches. After a second or two of enjoying Jo’s performance she collected her own mop and joined in, not wanting Jo to have all the fun. She felt there had been an unspoken understanding between them or at least she hoped that was the case and Jo didn’t think her bonkers, happy one minute, hysterical the next. Though the look on his face had certainly made her feel far from bonkers and more accurately, safe.
It didn’t take long before the cleaning had turned into a water fight and the mops were replaced by their cleaning starfish, which consisted of them lying on their backs moving their arms and legs up and down in the soap suds. Florence hadn’t laughed this hard in a very long time; in fact she couldn’t remember a time past the age of five where she had laughed so hard, she snorted. For it had been her dad, always on his hands and knees pretending to be one animal or another – a grizzly beast or a dazzling kind unicorn, crawling around the living room of their tiny family flat, that made her giggle with glee as a child. There was no voice he couldn’t mimic, no animal he couldn’t perform and no hour of the day where he wasn’t invested in his little girl, unless he was away for work. Florence’s snorts bounced off the barn walls as Jo hollered and pranced around as she tried to keep up with him, him on his stallion, her on her unicorn. When their buckets were empty of water and every inch of the barn was soaked, Florence and Jo returned to the floor where they lay staring up at the ceiling watching the glorious sun through the cracks in the roof.
‘My mum and dad loved this place. We lived in a tiny flat that was littered with canvases and scripts. It was cosy and filled with love, like I could feel it in every nook and cranny of the house. But I can see why my parents liked coming here. The open space, the fresh air, the inspiration. But I just couldn’t do it, Jo. My nanna, she loved it here too but the last memory I have that is linked to this place is losing my mum and my dad saying, “We should never have gone,” over and over, saying he needed to turn back the clock. Every time my nanna suggested I come back, that it might do me a world of good, I shouted, I rebelled and wouldn’t hear a word about it. I would chastise her for being a hypocrite, encouraging me but unable to face it herself. I was so cruel. I didn’t want to remember the beauty; I was so angry, but there’s so much beauty,’ Florence said softly. She could feel the droplets of tears on her eyelashes and pinched her eyes closed. In her mind she saw her dad galloping along the lake with her, her mum with a sketchbook cross-legged by the water, their faces beaming with joy and for a moment in time it felt like they were right beside her again. Florence hadn’t realised just how much she had needed that; how much Margot had been right in not being afraid to visit them in her mind. In baring her soul to Jo, it felt as though all the memories she had tried to burn from her brain had come roaring back and she found that she had missed them terribly.
Next to her Florence could feel the warmth of Jo’s body heating her skin, though the sun was burning through the ragged roof of the barn, the water from their cleaning expedition was beginning to chill her clothes. When she turned to look at him, he was already looking at her through glistening eyes.
‘I’m glad you came,’ Jo whispered.
‘Me too,’ Florence whispered back. ‘Do you let yourself think about your mum?’ she asked softly. Jo’s chest rose and fell with a heavy sigh.
‘Naturally, my mind sometimes wanders to where she ended up, if she had ever found her great novel. I used to type her name into Google,’ he said, a small chuckle falling from his lips. ‘I guess a part of me hoped that she had succeeded, for it had been the one thing she had wanted most in life, more than her own son. A big part of me wanted to see that giving me up had been worth it, but for all I know she could have changed her name, got married, started a new family and so I’ve never had much luck with my searches, not that I’ve cared to look for a long time.’
Florence wasn’t sure how to respond, how she could take away Jo’s pain. It had hurt losing her mum, she still felt the jagged shards of her shattered heart poking at her chest, but losing her dad, knowing that she had not been enough to keep him alive, it had crushed her, making it feel as though every bone in her body had crumpled with no chance of repair. She felt for Jo living with the knowledge that his mum chose to walk away from him, for she knew that pain agonisingly well.
‘I’m sorry, Jo,’ she whispered after a few moments.
‘Me too,’ Jo returned. Florence then turned towards the sun as its light beamed through the cracks in the roof and bounced off the wet floor creating rainbows in the bubbles. A little time passed and her thoughts drifted from her parents to faraway lands and scenic images. Her eyelids began to flutter, her tense muscles relaxing in the peaceful surroundings. She felt as if she were floating on the water.
‘Don’t disappear, tell me,’ Jo said, disrupting the quiet, though his voice was gentle and calm. He turned his head to the side watching as Florence’s eyes fluttered open and she bit her lip in thought.
Florence smiled at his request. Feeling the water underneath her soaking her dress and cooling her body, the chill now gone, she breathed out a delicate breath.
‘Right now, I’m in the ocean, in a tropical paradise somewhere. The sea is warm, yet soothing and refreshing and it’s lapping around me, the waves calming my thoughts. The clouds are smiling down at me and they are sparkling as though made of glitter. Each is a different colour – indigo, turquoise, silver – for Care Bears live up there you know?’ she told Jo, who closed his eyes tight. Florence hoped he could picture what she was describing. ‘Arrrgh, ooouch, oh my God, there’s a shark and it just bit my leg,’ Florence screamed suddenly sitting up and grabbing Jo, tickling his stomach and jolting him from the restful daydream and scaring the living daylights out of him. His face was a picture of fright, his mouth wide open, his breathing heavy as he tried to bat away her tickles.
‘Florence,’ he protested, but Florence was rolling around laughing, screaming, and holding her faux bitten leg not paying any attention to his pleas. With a look of revenge on his face, Jo splashed at the water on the ground, eliciting more screams fr
om Florence as she tried to crawl away, the water dripping off her glasses.
When they had both exhausted themselves with laughter and Jo resorted to being a gentleman and letting up on his revenge, Florence flopped back down on the barn floor. Jo leant back next to her, propping himself up on his elbow, while Florence let her hair fan out around her. Her glasses were a little foggy and her dress clung to her body, but she was content.
‘That was not funny. That was mean,’ Jo said once their breathing had returned to normal. He gave her a mock scolding.
‘It was a little funny,’ she replied, holding her thumb and forefinger inches apart when she said “little”. Jo batted away one of his curls and pouted playfully but then his eyes turned serious and his lips curved into a small smile. ‘I’m sorry about your mum and dad,’ he said, his voice sweet and consoling.
‘Me too,’ Florence said, with no tears sprouting in her eyes. A small smile crept onto her face as she looked at him. She felt different somehow, happy and relaxed in a way that she had never felt before. ‘We used to come here in the summer holidays, just for a few days. I would play by the lake and they would sit under the blossoms reading to each other or joining in with my escapades. Nanna would come too sometimes. I’m lucky in that she didn’t come that year because she was working. I don’t know what I would have done if she had been in the car and gotten injured too. I was fortunate that my car seat provided such protection, had I not been so tightly strapped in with all that padding around me, well…” Florence trailed off. “She won’t come back; my nanna I mean. I think I absorbed her fear and I know she carries guilt for that. I used to get mad at her for suggesting I come on my own. I’d shout and make a fuss over her thinking if it was so easy for me to do, then why couldn’t she. But she lost her daughter and son-in-law. I can’t imagine losing a daughter, I wouldn’t want to,’ Florence confessed, feeling strangely at ease in talking about her past now. Jo or this place somehow made it easy.
