He turns back around and starts driving.
I glance over at Charlie, who is on his phone and has not noticed this exchange at all. Something is wrong, I can tell, and I would dearly like to clamber up to the front of the van and sit in one of the passenger seats next to him. That is logistically impossible while we are driving, so I settle for asking: “Is that okay? I’m not really bothered about going there. We could go somewhere else, or skip Jane Austen entirely...”
“No. It’s fine,” he replies shortly. “I’m fine. I just need to concentrate.”
At this point, he switches on his music—Alice Cooper, insanely loud—and conversation is no longer possible. I stare at the back of his head. Even his shoulders look more tense than usual, and I spend the rest of the journey worried that I have somehow unintentionally upset him. That the conversation we had this morning didn’t go as smoothly as I had imagined. I realize that this is supremely arrogant, though, making everything about me, and wonder what else could be wrong.
The journey passes quickly, and we make the drive up a steep hill along a winding road and park. Betty jumps down out of the van and immediately starts sniffing the air, as though she is trying to find a trace of something. She runs over to Luke as soon as he climbs out and starts scooting around his ankles, making a high-pitched yipping sound I haven’t heard from her before.
Luke leans down, scratches behind her ears, and says: “I know, girl, I know...”
He strides ahead of us, putting Betty on a leash because she is so unsettled, and we follow. Even Charlie notices, and we share a questioning look as we trail behind. We catch up with him at a viewpoint and follow his gaze. It is a view worth lingering on: a glorious patchwork quilt of green fields, thick hedges, and glorious woods. The countryside is spread out before us, flowing for miles, dotted with distant signs of habitation, red roofs and white brickwork.
All around us are rolling hills and wide grassy spaces, glorying in the sunshine. There are people here, and a parking lot, but if you cut all of that out you can definitely imagine it being the same as it was in Jane Austen’s day. You can picture Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, making the long trek up here with Mr. Knightley and the rest of the Highbury socialites for their picnic. Emma, if I remember rightly, is a bit of a bitch that day—and getting told off by Mr. K is the beginning of quite a journey for her.
If it weren’t for Luke’s demeanor, I’d probably be looking it up on my phone and getting him and Charlie to act out scenes in silly voices with me. Luke would be a great Mr. Knightley, and I’d make Charlie play Emma just for kicks and giggles.
I reach out, put my hand on Luke’s arm. Breaking our new rules already, I know, but there is definitely something wrong with him. “Are you okay?” I ask gently.
He tenses beneath my touch, and I pull my fingers away quickly.
“Yeah, Luke, what’s up, man?” Charlie echoes. “Even Betty seems a bit freaked.”
Luke turns away from the view and faces us. He runs his hands over his hair and replies: “I’m sorry. Look, come on—let’s go for a walk. Shake it off.”
He doesn’t explain what he wants to shake off, but we walk alongside him. He points out a place called Swiss Cottage and tells us it’s where John Logie Baird used to live. The building itself is hidden by dense greenery, so we can’t see it, but a circular blue plaque backs up his claim.
“Who’s John Logie Baird?” asks Charlie, taking a photo of it anyway.
“Inventor of the television,” I reply, grinning.
“Oh wow! I feel like I should fall to my knees and worship... I can’t even imagine a world without television...”
We continue along a shaded path, clambering over gnarled tree roots, until Luke stops in front of a gravestone. Its inscription tells us that it belongs to Major Peter Labelliere, an eccentric resident of Dorking who was buried there head-downward in 1800. Charlie looks it up on his phone and tells us the Major apparently thought the world was upside-down, and this made sense to him. Each to their own.
Eventually, we emerge out onto a gentle slope, and Luke pauses. He sits down on the grass, and Betty climbs onto his lap, licking his hand.
“Okay,” he says as we join him. “I can’t shake this off. Charlie, has your mum told you about my daughter, Katie?”
Charlie flicks his gaze at me, swallows, and shakes his head. “Well,” Luke continues, “I had a little girl. She died a few years ago, when she was nine.”
Charlie’s face pales, and he blinks very fast before saying: “I’m so sorry, Luke. That’s a nightmare.”
“Yeah. Thanks. Anyway, we didn’t live too far from here, and on the weekends and school holidays, this was one of her very favorite places in the world. We’d drive here early in the day, bring a picnic, spend hours rambling through the woods and up and down the pathways. The deeper you go, the more it starts to look like something from Middle-earth, you know? Perfect place for exploring.”
His words unleash a torrent of guilt inside me—even though I had no idea of this place’s significance to Luke, I feel dreadful for having unwittingly brought him here. “When she was smaller,” he continues, “her favorite part of all was the play trail. Better than a park any day—tucked away in the woods, trees to climb, log bridges to clamber over, forts made out of branches. There are some stepping-stones over the river as well—she loved those. We had to carry her across to start with, then she got braver each time, until eventually she could do it by herself.”
He pauses and smiles, and I know that he is remembering. That those images of his baby are forever etched in his mind, both consoling and corrosive at the same time.
Charlie is rapt, his brown eyes shining with tears, and I sneak my hand into his. He squeezes my fingers as Luke continues.
“So even when she got sick, we used to bring her. It depended on how well she was, whether she could manage much of a walk or not. But during her good times, when she’d responded well to her treatments, she could seem almost like a healthy little girl. Once we got Betty, she came with us too—it’s a pretty perfect place for dogs as well. That’s why she’s a bit high-strung this morning, I think. If I let her off the lead right now, I suspect she’d fly away into the distance, all the way to those stepping-stones.”
I recall the dog’s reaction when we got out of Joy this morning; the way she was sniffing the air. It made me think she was searching for something, and I was right. She was searching for Katie. I stroke Betty’s feathery-soft head. She is a very good dog.
“After we lost her, we scattered her ashes here as well. We all came—my parents; Sally, my wife; her mum; our siblings; Betty, of course. It was a strange little pilgrimage, on a day very like this one. It seemed odd that the sun even dared to shine, but Sally pointed out that it was what Katie would have wanted. She would have wanted us to have one last day of fun, even if it was without her. And that... well, that was the last time I was here.”
He leans forward and nuzzles his face into Betty’s fur. I suspect there are tears that he does not want us to see, and he is entitled to that. I’m feeling pretty tearful myself.
