packed, and so many people had been so kind and thoughtful. But Joel had barely been able to acknowledge their kindness, responding like an automaton, feeling only a numbness that he now realized must have been deep jolt. The suddenness of Claire’s death still shocked him, even now, a year later. How could someone as beautiful and alive and vibrant as Claire be there one day, and not the next? He’d be trying to make sense of that till the day he died.
Joel was pleased to see he had arrived earlier than Claire’s parents. Selfishly, he wanted a bit of time on his own, for his own private grief. He walked up to her grave and felt again the sudden shock of seeing her name there:
Claire Harriet Lyle
1975–2010
Loving wife, mother and daughter
Taken from us too soon
He never got over the unreality of it. Nor, did he imagine, he would ever get used to it. Claire should be with him now, watching Sam learning to walk and talk, helping Joel restore the house and gardens as they had planned. She shouldn’t be here, on this Sussex hillside, buried six feet under. He felt a sudden sharp bolt of anguish, the pain of it almost taking his breath away. Claire was lost to him, and there was no saying sorry now.
Kezzie sat in the middle of half-packed boxes, in her tiny lounge crying. She felt like she’d been sitting in the middle of boxes crying forever, ever since she’d made the decision that she had to leave. Only weeks ago, at the height of summer, she’d been excitedly packing up to move out of her small flat in Finsbury Park and move in with Richard. The gardening course she’d completed finished, the redundancy from her much hated job in web design accepted. A whole new life lay before them. She would design the gardens, Richard, the architecture. Together they would take Chelsea and Hampton Court by storm. And now that would never happen. The last month of her life had been the most painful, confusing and ridiculous time she’d ever known.
Should she ring Richard again? Kezzie sat on her heels in the chaos of her lounge and thought about it. She was sorely tempted. It had been nearly a week since their last painfully awkward conversation. Somehow she clung to the hope that maybe he could find it in himself to forgive her for what she’d done. She flinched as she saw the cold contempt in his eyes at their last meeting, heard him say over and over: ‘You’ve let me down, Kezzie. I can’t trust you.’ That scene kept playing like it was on a hideous time loop, over and over in her brain. However much she tried to shut it out, there it was every time she closed her eyes. A reminder of what she had done, and what she had lost.
But all that ringing and texting Richard in vain were making her feel slightly unhinged, and even Flick, the kindest and most supportive of best friends, had gently pointed out she was losing dignity in trying to win him back.
‘You have to give him time, Kez,’ she said. ‘You’re going to lose him for sure this way.’
Kezzie knew she was right, but the temptation late at night to email him after a glass of red, or ring him, just to hear his voice, had proved too much for her time and time again. The last occasion had been so mortifiyingly cringe-making – Richard had answered saying, ‘Kezzie, I have my parents here, please don’t make a scene’ – that she’d hung up straight away. At that moment she decided she was losing the plot big time, and needed to escape, somewhere, anywhere, so she wouldn’t chance running into Richard, and where she wouldn’t be reminded of him, on every corner.
It was then that Aunt Jo had stepped in. Arriving on an unexpected flying visit to London, and seeing the state of her beloved niece, Jo had declared that Kezzie needed a bolt hole. ‘And as luck would have it, hon, I can offer you my place.’
‘What do you mean?’ Kezzie had asked.
‘I’m off round the world for a year with Mickey,’ said Jo, referring to her latest toy boy. ‘You remember him, don’t you? We’re going to find ourselves, and maybe get married in Thailand.’ She giggled excitedly. ‘You can stay at my cottage for as long as you want – stay all year if you need to, babe.’
‘Really?’ Kezzie gulped through her tears. It sounded like the best solution she could think of. She had to get away from London, from the car crash that had been the end of her relationship, and the mess she’d made of everything. She needed time and space to regroup, and sort herself out. Staying here moping after Richard was doing her no good whatsoever. He was never coming back to her, and all she was doing was prolonging the agony.
So here she was shoving things in boxes. Every little thing reminded her of the last two brilliant years with Richard, from the framed certificate stating she’d passed the Landscape Gardening Course she’d taken at his suggestion, to the picture of the two of them walking in the Lakes earlier in the year, when he’d asked her to move in with him. And then there were the gardening gloves he’d given her at Christmas, and the silver earrings, which had been a birthday present. In London, all she could think about was Richard. Escaping was the only chance she stood of getting over him.
She picked up her phone and rang Richard’s number. This was the last time she’d do this. The very very last time.
His answer phone kicked in. ‘Hi there, Richard isn’t here right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you later.’ She kept doing this, just to hear his voice. She couldn’t help it, even though she knew it didn’t do any good. It was time she stopped and moved on.
Taking a deep breath, and trying to ignore the telltale wobble in her voice, she said, ‘Hi, Richard. This is Kezzie. I’m leaving town. You won’t hear from me again.’
She put the phone down, trembling, tears spilling over her cheeks. But it was done. Kezzie surveyed the mess of the room she was in, and slowly started to rationalize the boxes. There wasn’t any other option. The summer was over, and autumn had begun.
Chapter Two
Different sounds. That was the most unusual thing about living in the country, Kezzie decided. It wasn’t dead silent, as she’d always imagined. The previous evening, the birds had been making a right racket in the hedgerow at dusk, and she’d heard bats squeaking in the dark. This morning she’d been woken by a very early morning dawn chorus. It was still relatively light in the mornings, though approaching mid September, and having left London’s gloomy weather, it had cheered her up no end to get up and watch a very pink sunrise give way to a bright and sunny September morning.
It had taken her all day to pack up her stuff in the van she’d hired, drive down to Jo’s house in the pretty village of Heartsease on the Surrey/Sussex border which she’d fallen in love with on previous visits, and unpack it all. Kezzie knew she could have asked Flick and the others to help but she was too proud. She’d told Flick about the split, of course she had, but she still felt sore and embarrassed about the reasons for it. She couldn’t face actually telling anyone, let alone her best friend, what had really happened. And part of her need for escape was a need to re-evaluate every aspect of her life: her drinking and drug taking, and slight feeling of always living on the edge. Until she had met Richard that had been all she’d wanted, and she’d revelled in shocking him, and teasing him about being so straight-laced. But since their break-up, she’d become uncertain about her lifestyle and wondered whether she was right to always be so frenetic and spontaneous. It used to feel fun. Now she wasn’t sure. And sadly, Flick and her friends were part of all that. Maybe if she was away she could unpick what and who she was, and work out where her life went from here. Maybe.
First things first though. Kezzie realized last night, before she fell into bed, that she’d forgotten to buy milk and teabags. Jo, a caring and thoughtful individual in many ways, hadn’t thought to leave any groceries in the fridge. Mind you, as Jo appeared to have taken off on her voyage of self-discovery with one very small backpack, a few necessities, and had yet to email, perhaps that wasn’t all that surprising.
Kezzie stretched and slowly got out of her aunt’s big, cosy bed. Jo had modelled it on a Bedouin tent and built a frame above it to hang curtains from. Kezzie felt like she was emerging from a cocoon; it was the perfect bed to hide herself away in. She threw on a dressing