33
‘I still don’t get why you snuck off like that,’ Blessing said, for about the tenth time, as we sat in the tiny back garden of the cottage, watching the bumblebees flitting between the foxgloves lining my back fence.
When I’d left a week ago, the outdoor seating had consisted of a half-rotten, moss-covered bench with a broken back. Now, we lounged in matching reclining chairs with plump, stripy cushions that Blessing assured me she’d got for next to nothing from a preloved furniture website, on the basis that if we were going to live with the inconvenience of being in the middle of nowhere, we might as well be comfy. I had to agree.
‘What else was I going to do? I had a plane to catch.’
‘Emmie, your flight was at twelve-fifteen. You messaged me from the airport at eight-twenty.’
I wriggled on my seat, taking a sip of Blessing’s ‘signature weekend cocktail’ as I tried to come up with a plausible answer. It might have been the extra splash of gin that persuaded me to simply go with the truth.
‘The way they all looked at me, once they knew I’d been hiding who I was, I couldn’t bear to face that again.’
‘Pip, too?’
‘Especially Pip!’ I sank lower in the chair, flicking a tiny spider off my knee. ‘He only came after me to double-check that I was leaving and apologise for his mum. He didn’t once try to convince me to stay. He was so angry when he heard I’d been hiding the truth.’
‘That can’t be true,’ she protested. ‘You said his dad explained that he was the one making you keep it a secret.’
‘Maybe. But he was also mad that I didn’t tell him about the milk, or the other stuff. He thinks I jeopardised his sister’s wedding because I didn’t trust him.’
Blessing blew a raspberry. ‘The only person doing that was his mum.’
‘Exactly. It’s a lot easier to blame a woman you barely know than your own mother.’
‘He’s not contacted you today?’
I shook my head. ‘I told him not to. There’s nothing to say apart from, “Sorry, that all turned out a bit crappy”. Why would he bother when it’s such a complicated mess?’
‘Um, because you’re gorgeous and awesome and totally worth it?’
‘Clearly not, because the only messages I’ve got are from Sherwood Airport staff freaking out about how they can’t live without Parsley’s coffee or pasties. Not one of them has mentioned missing me.’
‘Hmm.’ Blessing looked pensive, before topping up both our glasses from the jug she’d balanced on the wooden crate temporarily acting as a garden table.
‘Seriously, though, you have to feel proud of yourself. For someone as untravelled as you to catch a plane on the spur of the moment, find yourself a place to stay, make friends, get invited to a hen do and a wedding. Have someone offer you their airport business! I’d never have had the guts to buy the ticket in the firstplace, with no hotel waiting for me on the other side. You are one fierce woman hiding behind that sad little ponytail.’
‘What?’ I spun my head around to face her. ‘You were the one who badgered me into it!’
She beamed. ‘Yeah. I had a feeling you’d do okay. And look what happened – instead of slaving away in that giant aluminium shed, you’re here, with me, enjoying Blessing’s sunshine happy hour, the world at your feet, endless possibilities just waiting for us to smash the hell out of them.’
‘I am. And I’m very grateful.’ I held up my glass. ‘Here’s to being unemployed, completely messing things up with my two-year crush and having a whacking great fine to pay for my defunct business.’
‘Cheers.’
As we whiled away the rest of the day, chatting about ideas for the cottage, idly discussing grandiose plans about a future business and where we’d go for our first joint holiday, the island began to fade into something of a distant dream. Now I was surrounded by oak trees, squirrels rustling in the summer leaves, the extraordinary events of the past week already started to settle into the story that Blessing assured me we would laugh about one day.
My life was here, for now at least, and there was something wonderful about being with someone who’d known me for longer than anyone, in the place I’d always been, while so aware that things had changed forever.
For that, if nothing else, I would be forever grateful to the Isle of Siskin.
Saturday, we both slept in, ate scrambled eggs with leftover guacamole and sour cream for brunch and then got down to business.
Not actual business yet. We’d agreed a weekend off before we started making serious plans about that. In the meantime, there was a cottage that needed a makeover even more badly than its owner.
Blessing had been sleeping in my bedroom, as using Mum’s felt wrong before I’d sorted through it. The only issue with this being that her promise to bring the ‘bare essentials’ with her until we’d redecorated the larger bedroom included so many bags, cases and piles of random clutter there was only space in my bedroom for one person at a time.
I’d slept on the sofa the past two nights, despite Blessing forcefully trying to insist I had my room back. I’d eventually convinced her that the sofa was infinitely preferable to squashing myself in with her stuffed-animal zoo, risking a bruised shin or broken toe if I needed to negotiate the slalom getting to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
