‘You’re not on the run from snipers now, you know,’ Lucy calls out as we trudge uphill in Mum’s wake.
‘Sorry, am I going too fast?’ She turns briefly, her boots slowing on the path, before continuing, clearly not that sorry.
‘When I was five, I assumed I’d be able to catch her up at some point,’ Lucy mutters between breaths. ‘You never had any trouble though.’
‘I was fitter in the days when I was running every weekend.’
‘You should start again,’ she says. ‘Not competitively, of course, but it’d be a great hobby for you. You really enjoyed it once.’
‘Maybe. I’m not really thinking that far ahead though, yet. I’m supposed to be taking baby steps.’
‘Oh, fuck that,’ she exclaims, pausing for breath, her hand pinned to her hips. ‘I mean, Ellie, you’re out. If I were you I’d be running around this field singing “The Hills Are Alive”!’
What I don’t explain is that, despite me putting on a good display of being relaxed and happy, my agoraphobia will always be a ghost waiting in the wings, biding its time before its presence is again felt. Colette says I shouldn’t fight this feeling, just observe it, watch it, keep doing what I’m doing. Which I am, dutifully, but it does stop me short of skipping around like Maria Von Trapp.
We cross the field and reach the edge of the woods, as Mum turns to us. ‘What was that song you girls used to sing, the one you learnt at Brownies? It reminds me of walking up here.’
‘“Do your balls hang low?”’ Lucy says.
‘It was “Do your ears hang low?”,’ I correct her.
‘It might have been that in your Brownie pack.’
We find a spot to eat our picnic and lay out a blanket, stretching our legs in front of us as we unwrap Mum’s home-made sausage rolls, Kettle chips and chilled watermelon slices.
‘If you’re not up for running, what about giving some of your old mates a ring?’ Lucy asks, continuing a conversation that I’d thought had ended. ‘You could go out for a few drinks.’
‘I’m not at the going out for a few drinks stage just yet,’ I say. ‘And when I am it’ll be you who will be roped to the pub first, I’m afraid.’
‘Absolutely fine by me,’ she says, catching a flake of pastry on her fingertip. ‘So, these sessions with your shrink… what happens exactly? Whatever she’s doing seems to be working a treat.’
‘It’s cognitive behavioural therapy. I like it because it homes in on a specific, current problem – my agoraphobia – rather than banging on about anything that’s screwed you up in your past.’
‘Hmm,’ she says. ‘So you don’t even talk about Romania?’
‘Nope.’
‘Huh.’
‘The CBT is going really well,’ I say, stressing the point.
‘Yeah, I can tell,’ she concedes, propping her elbow on her knee. ‘I don’t know, I just… I get why you wouldn’t want to talk about the past all the time. Who would? But doesn’t part of you want to know about where you came from? To try to make sense of what happened to you?’
Mum flashes her a look that says, please shut up, darling, the kind that never, ever works on Lucy.
‘I’m talking about all the things that made you the person you are… the political and economic context, or what happened to the other kids you were with – the ones that left and the ones that stayed. Have you read the Observer piece that Mum wrote? They published it last weekend.’
‘No,’ I reply.
‘You should. It’s really good. It feels incredible that this happened in your lifetime, let alone to you. I just know that if it was me—’
‘But it wasn’t,’ I interrupt.
She closes her mouth. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean…’
But she doesn’t finish her explanation. ‘No, it’s fine,’ I say, patting her hand. ‘Don’t be silly. Shall we get going again?’
We pack away what’s left of the food and follow the steep path downhill. We’re only a few minutes in, when the heel of my boot slips on a stone and my ankle gives way. I stumble backwards, instinctively reaching out and falling onto my hand. I inhale sharply as the skin tears on a rock and look down to see a glossy line of blood dripping from the ball of my thumb to my wrist. My head begins to swim.
I become aware that Lucy is fussing and Gertie is barking, both sensing my panic, as sweat pricks on the back of my neck. It feels like the start of an attack until I sense the hot, firm grip of Mum’s hand on my arm.
‘All right?’ she asks calmly, handing me a napkin from her rucksack.
I nod and press it against the cut, before wiping the blood away. Then I stand up and I do what I’ve been doing all my life. I start again.
Chapter 42
Mum’s car pulls up outside the house as the tail lights of Jamie’s van are disappearing in the other direction.
‘Give him a beep!’ Lucy exclaims and, with lightning reflexes, thumps the centre of the steering wheel. Mum tuts at her impertinence as Jamie comes to an abrupt halt and begins to reverse. As he draws up alongside our car, he catches sight of me in the back and smiles, raising his hand to wave. Lucy sighs and turns around.
‘Can’t you fall in love with him?’ she hisses. ‘He’s bloody lovely.’
Now I tut and open the car door, picking up Gertie.
‘Hello there,’ he says cheerfully, stepping forward to greet the dog, who is wriggling in my arms to reach him. ‘The bulbs you ordered are outside your front door.’
‘Ah. I sometimes forget you’re here for business and not just… pleasure.’ My ears warm and I wish I’d chosen a different word.
‘What are you serving up today, bartender?’ Lucy asks, closing the car door. I lower Gertie to the ground, where she starts attempting to lick Jamie’s ankles.
‘Much as I would love to spend another night losing to you both at Guess the Intro, I can’t today.’
‘Have you got many more deliveries?’ I ask.
‘It’s not that. I’m being taken for dinner by my publisher so I need to dart home and spruce myself up.’
‘That’s so exciting, Jamie.’ As he holds my gaze, his mouth softens, prompting a burst of something sweet at the pit of my belly.
‘So how’s your love life?’ Lucy asks, a subject she quizzed him about extensively a few weeks ago.
‘Oh, not much to report,’ he laughs.
‘I’ve found myself a Norwegian,’ she announces.
‘Have you? Well done.’
‘He’s a significant upgrade on what I’m used to, I assure you,’ she continues, then glances at me. ‘Well, I’ll leave you both to it, shall I?’
As Lucy and Mum disappear into the house, I look up at Jamie. He looks down at me. It is an oddly awkward moment. ‘I’m glad I bumped into you. I’ve actually got something for you. Apart from the bulbs, I mean.’
‘Oh, the organic seaweed extract? I’ve been waiting for that ever since they sent me some copper slug repellents by mistake.’
‘No, it’s… wait here.’ He returns to the van as the sun filters through the branches of the trees and Gertie disappears under the patio table for shade, lowering her head onto her paws for a snooze. He returns with a small, leather-bound book, which he clutches to his chest as if he’s never going to let it go.
‘I painted a couple of pictures of your garden,’ he says.
‘Oh!’ I say, surprised. ‘Are they… in there?’ I gesture to the book.
‘Yeah,’ he says, but refuses to unclasp it. ‘It’s not a big deal – I do this kind of thing all the time when something takes my interest. It’s a good excuse to experiment with different techniques. The first one wasn’t great. Like I say, I was experimenting. So I did another and…’
‘How many pictures did you do?’ I ask.
‘A couple.’ He shifts to the other foot. ‘A few.’
‘Can I see them?’
‘Oh. Yes, of course.’ He unfolds his arms and hands me the book.
I open it to find a sk
etch depicting my annexe from the opposite side of the patio. It’s in early summer, when the flowers had almost but not quite reached peak cottage garden whimsy. He has captured every exquisite detail: the peachy glow of light as the sun sets, the patterns in the lichen on the stone walls, the way the daisies grow in the gaps of the path. He perfectly depicts the strength and beauty of the weeping willow, its curtain of elegant, fluttering leaves.
‘That one isn’t the best,’ he mutters, turning over the page before I’ve properly had a chance to look. ‘This one’s better but… to be honest, that’s not the greatest either.’
‘Did you paint them from memory?’ I ask.
‘Partly,’ he says. ‘Partly from your Instagram page too.’ He peers in and frowns, dissatisfied at something else. ‘I kept going and I did more pictures. I’m not one hundred per cent sold on any of them. In fact, I’m not sure why I even gave you this. Actually… I don’t know what I was thinking.’
‘They’re stunning, Jamie,’ I tell him, refusing to hand it back as I start flicking through. Each one is created with a combination of paint and pencil and captures every subtle detail perfectly, from the dewy grass to the glittering sunshine on the roses. This is more than a gesture. It represents hours upon hours of his time and talent.
‘It’s… just the best thing, Jamie. I’ll treasure it.’
He gives a brief nod, satisfied. My phone beeps.
‘Sorry,’ I say, withdrawing it from my back pocket. It’s a text from Guy.
Hey. I’m going to be passing in about thirty mins and thought I’d pop in. I’ve been thinking about you a lot. Certain parts of you in particular… xxx
My heart soars. ‘It is Wednesday, isn’t it?’ I ask.
‘Last time I checked. Why?’ Jamie glances down long enough to see Guy’s name on the phone. He looks up and I register the slow movement of his Adam’s apple as he backs away.
‘Sorry. I’ll… leave you to it,’ he says.
I want to say more, to tell him how overwhelmed I am, how grateful. But none of the right words come to me and I’m conscious that I urgently need to shower before Guy arrives.
‘Thanks, Jamie. The pictures. They’re… lovely. Stupid word, but… really. Listen, I hope your meeting goes well, okay?’
‘Yeah. Thanks,’ he says, and off he goes.
As his van disappears down the hill, Lucy appears at my side. ‘Aw, has he gone already? What’s that?’
I show her the book. ‘Jamie painted these for me.’
She starts flicking through. ‘Oh my God. He did this? For you?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘Shit.’
‘Look, I’ve got to go, Guy’s on his way over.’
She closes the book and looks at her watch. ‘Is he going to be long? I’d love to meet him but I’ve got a work event tonight and I need to get back.’
‘Today isn’t a good day anyway,’ I say, deciding not to explain that I’m responding to a booty call. I walk her towards the gate. ‘You know, I really enjoyed today, Lucy. It was good, wasn’t it?’
‘It really was,’ she grins, putting her arm round my waist. ‘And the next step, by the way, is you coming to my flat to meet Jakob.’
‘I’d love that.’
She is about to leave, but as she reaches the gate she pauses. ‘What’s up?’ I ask.
‘I know I was joking before about Jamie,’ she replies. ‘But you do realise he is absolutely crazy about you, don’t you?’
Chapter 43
Harriet, 1993
Even before Harriet had taken a pregnancy test and discovered it was positive, she’d felt wrung out by Sarajevo. The city had been under siege for nearly eighteen months and Kosevo Hospital had particularly suffered its toll. She’d visited on a clear, starry night, arriving as another bullet-riddled ambulance trundled past the freshly dug graves in the cemetery and pulled in to the emergency entrance. Mountains of bloodstained sheets were piled up outside the garage, waiting for a lorry with fuel to take them to an incinerator. There was no point in going to a laundry with only occasional water and often none at all.
Inside she had been shown round by Dr Farouk Kafedzic amidst an atmosphere of total chaos. Amputees’ beds were being wheeled to parts of the building that didn’t leave them exposed to the sniper positions on the hills. The only sources of light were the nurses’ stations and the glow of the moon through the windows. Dark, over-crowded wards were packed full of patients whose chances of recovery after their fragile bodies had succumbed to mortar shells or bullets were variable to say the least.
Dr Kafedzic, meanwhile, was a man on the verge of a breakdown. ‘A mortar shell landed among children playing in the old city yesterday,’ he told Harriet wearily. ‘Three were killed instantly, another ten ended up in here. We managed to save all of them, except a little girl. She was seven.’ His eyelids closed, but momentarily, as if he couldn’t bear the images in the darkness behind them. ‘This is not what I became a doctor for. I have seen things that no human being should see.’
Harriet kept thinking of those words, long after she’d landed on UK soil, stood in a toilet cubicle at Heathrow and watched a blue cross develop on a white stick, before grabbing a cab to take her home to her family. Her eagerly awaited return to war-reporting following the twelve-month break to settle in Ellie had been very different from what she’d envisaged.
She’d enjoyed her stint in the newsroom and was pleasantly surprised by the challenges it threw at her. Now, back on the front line, she found she simply couldn’t stand being away from Ellie. She’d always missed people back home on her trips away, but what she felt for her daughter just didn’t compare. For the first time in years, when she envisaged herself back in Fleet Street full time, the thought did not repel her. In many ways she wished she felt differently. Because the world still burned and it needed journalists to uncover the worst and best of human acts with courage and sensitivity.
But she’d never flattered herself into thinking she was unique. There would be other reporters – and more women, at least she hoped so. Because the world might have needed her, but now a new baby did and so did Ellie. No, that wasn’t quite right. It was Harriet who needed them, more than she’d ever imagined she would.
* * *
Colin was overjoyed about the pregnancy, cheerfully dismissing friends who told him that with a newborn around he should never plan to sleep again. He didn’t mention the sleepless nights they’d been having with Ellie since the day she arrived or that, though he had no experience of babies, he hoped he was already a father in all the ways that mattered. Still, he was anxious about how Ellie might react to the idea of making room for an interloper.
‘Did she have nightmares while I was away?’ Harriet asked. They had flared up again in the aftermath of the dinner with the Rucarenus and although they had begun to peter out a couple of months later, Harriet knew they hadn’t seen the back of them altogether. In fact, she’d slipped into Ellie’s room a couple of nights before she left for Sarajevo and found her twisting under her duvet, as if sleep was a source of agitation, not release.
They’d discussed accessing the child counselling services that had been offered after the adoption, but quickly discovered that Ellie had an aversion to clinics and local authority waiting rooms, and any suggestion that a stranger would want to talk about her life in the orphanage caused her such distress that it seemed counterproductive.
‘It’s been fine,’ Colin told her. ‘She’s been to Brownies and had Helen and Jo over to play. We did some jewellery making.’
‘You did some jewellery making?’
‘Well, I supervised. I’d tried to teach them the rules of cricket but they were having none of it.’
Colin was right to worry about how Ellie would react to a new baby, but not for the reasons he imagined. They tried to involve her in the pregnancy, taking her to antenatal appointments and to pick out clothes, lemon-coloured sleep suits suitable for whichever sex the baby turned out to be.
They suggested naming the baby after characters in Ellie’s favourite books (Charlie from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or Lucy from the Chronicles of Narnia). But she monitored Harriet’s growing bump with suspicion, if not outright hostility. Harriet only worked out what the problem was on the day she felt the first twinges of labour.
She’d been driving Ellie and Jo home from school one Tuesday afternoon, two weeks before her due date. The plan had been for Ellie’s friend to come for dinner but Harriet dropped her home early, explaining to her mother that something might be happening.
‘Is the baby coming?’ Ellie had asked, as Harriet put on her seatbelt.
‘It might be,’ she smiled, glancing in the mirror. ‘Honestly, though, I’ve no idea. I’ve never done this before.’
Ellie looked out of the window. She seemed upset. ‘You’ll never be able to adopt Tabitha now, will you?’ she asked quietly.
‘Oh Ellie,’ Harriet sighed. There was no point in repeating the fact that nobody knew where Tabitha was.
In the event, three more days came and went before Lucy was born, during which Harriet was astonished to discover that absolutely nobody had been exaggerating about the pain involved. Soon afterwards, Colin brought Ellie into the hospital room to meet her new sister, her eyes cast downwards as she refused to lift her chin.
‘Hello, gorgeous girl,’ Harriet said wearily, beckoning Ellie into her arms. As Ellie snuggled into her mum’s hospital gown, tiny snuffling noises drifted from the cot, and she froze. ‘Would you like to come and meet the new member of the family?’ Colin asked. He lifted the baby out of the cot and brought her over to his daughter. She straightened up and examined Lucy’s curled fingers, her soft, pink skin. ‘Do you want to hold her?’
The World at My Feet Page 20
