Within you without you, p.21
Within You, Without You, page 21
Kathryn didn’t reply.
‘So go on, tell me what you saw,’ Elaine urged.
When Kathryn had finished telling her about seeing Ed walking along the road beneath Chanctonbury Hill, Elaine caught the eye of the waitress and said, ‘Two Southern Comfort and lemonades please.’
‘What?’ she said, laughing at Kathryn’s raised eyebrows. ‘We might not have seen each other in forever but I can still remember what you like to drink.’
‘I thought you would have forgotten. It was so long ago. I remember that summer so vividly, but I wasn’t sure you would.’
‘That summer? Or do you mean that whole year when I hardly saw you because you were always with him?’
‘I don’t think I was always with him.’
Elaine nodded, albeit with a smile. ‘You, my girl, were a lost cause. If you weren’t with him, you might as well have been because all you talked about was Ed. And, sorry to say Kathryn, but I just couldn’t see the appeal. Not really. I mean, he was good-looking, I have to admit that much. But not reliable.’
Kathryn gave a half smile. She had lived for twenty years with reliability and found it rather overrated.
‘And then, afterwards, you were inconsolable.’
Kathryn nodded. ‘It was half a lifetime ago but that ache, it’s never gone away. I mean, who’s to say that we wouldn’t have made a go of it?’
‘And that you’d now be settled somewhere with him? Enjoying your life together? Rather than just wallowing in the memory of him? Because that’s what you’ve been attached to all these years, Kathryn. The memory of him.’
What was it with Elaine and the brutal truth, Kathryn thought. Never one to consider how her opinion would land, Elaine said it as she saw it. It had been one of the things that Kathryn had admired when they were young, but now her words wounded her.
Noting her friend’s expression, Elaine continued, this time more softly. ‘Look, don’t mind me, Kathryn. It’s not everyone who gets to feel the way you felt about Ed. It’s a gift. Of sorts. Maybe I’m just envious.’
It didn’t feel like a gift. More of an aching hole that had never been filled.
‘I lost all of his letters years ago. I’d give anything to read them again. It would mean so much. But I have no idea what happened to them.’
The waitress returned with their drinks and Elaine waited until they were alone again before replying.
‘The letters in the green box?’
Kathryn was surprised her friend remembered such a small detail. ‘Yes, I had it in my university room and I thought I brought it back home but it went missing and I was never able to find it. You must have quite a memory if you can remember the colour of a box on my desk in 1993.’
Elaine bit her lip and winced. ‘Please don’t go mad. But I took it.’
‘What?’
‘I did it for your sake, Kathryn. We knew you wouldn’t move on if you kept reading those letters over and over again. You were obsessed. Trying to read new meanings into every word he had ever written to you. We thought it was the best thing.’
‘We?’
‘Your dad suggested it. I’m sorry, but none of us knew what to do with you.’
How was it that so many years could pass and yet the same feelings of frustration and anger, long buried, could rise? And so quickly. It was as if her time with Ed had been reduced to an interlude. A pause between her teenage years, in which she felt smothered by her parents’ expectations, and her years in Ireland where she fitted herself around Mark’s life. With the exception of her time with Ed, she had always done what others thought was best.
‘He had no right to take my things,’ she said icily.
‘Don’t blame your dad. It was both of us.’
Kathryn didn’t reply because words were pointless and she didn’t want to fall out with her newly rediscovered friend.
‘I can fetch them for you now,’ Elaine said nervously. ‘I’ve kept them safe. Maybe I knew you’d come looking for them one day.’
Kathryn gave a tight smile and nodded.
‘I’ll just pay the bill and then nip off for them.’ Elaine said, digging in her bag for her purse.
‘No, I’ll get it,’ said Kathryn. ‘ Is your place nearby? Shall I come with you?’
A look of uncertainty flickered in Elaine’s eyes.
‘No, you stay there. Rob’s working from home today. I’d rather not disturb him if I can. It’s only round the corner. I’ll nip back and get them and I’ll be back before you know it.’
Elaine’s phone had buzzed a couple of times in the last half hour and Kathryn now wondered whether it was Rob. In all these years she hadn’t considered the possibility that Elaine might be with someone who was possessive, who wanted her to break contact with people from her earlier life.
Kathryn paid the bill and had just sat back down to flick through the local newspaper when, true to her word, Elaine was back, holding a blue cloth bag. She handed it to Kathryn who, glancing inside, saw the pattern of the box. Her heart started to race.
Kathryn felt sure that if she started reading the letters, she would be floored by the feelings that would flood through her.
‘Look, I think it’s best if you go read them when you’re alone, without me breathing down your neck.’
Kathryn nodded. ‘Elaine, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been off with you like that. It’s just that people have always thought they’ve known what’s best for me. It was the story of my life… still is, to some degree.’
Elaine put a hand on her friend’s arm. ‘Don’t apologise to me of all people. I remember how it was back then and I also know what it’s like to feel like you’re locked down by life. In a kind of prison.’
‘A gilded cage.’
Elaine smiled faintly. ‘Got it in one. But you know what Kathryn, sometimes you just have to forge ahead with what’s right for you. You know, take no notice of everyone around you, however well-meaning they might be.’
Out on the street, Kathryn hugged her friend and agreed that they’d meet again, and next time for longer. As she watched Elaine cross the road and walk away, she wondered about the life her friend had created for herself, and the discontent she’d alluded to. Would she be able to take her own advice and put her own needs first?
They would talk more before she returned home, but for now, with the letters safely in her bag, Kathryn knew where she needed to go.
Chapter 17
The car park at the bottom of Chanctonbury Hill was larger than she remembered, its spaces marked by freshly painted white lines. A pay and display machine now stood on a raised island in the centre beside a sign bearing a list of instructions: keep your dog on a lead, put litter in bins, beware of nesting birds. As Kathryn pressed the key fob to lock the car, she wondered where she might find instructions for opening doors into the past. How could she do that correctly?
The chalk showed through where centuries of people had trod the turf. The white trail wound its way up the grassy slope, beckoning Kathryn onwards. She had transferred Ed’s letters into her coat pocket and slipped her hand around them, touching the paper he had once touched.
As she walked on, she noticed a couple coming towards her, their golden spaniel darting across the grass, probably on the scent of rabbits. They passed her without pausing their conversation as they walked on downhill.
She was glad to be alone on the hillside, to be able to turn off the path to where she knew the dewpond lay waiting. The turf, more springy and alive than the clay farmland around her home in Ireland, rose gently before the land tipped down into a hollow in which a clear pool of water lay. A hawthorn hedge sheltered two sides of the pond and there was room to pick a spot and sit down, sheltered by the sloping ground and the straggling hedge.
Kathryn felt the grass under the palms of her outstretched hands. She looked up at the bright blue sky and felt at home in the quiet. She unlaced her boots and peeled off her socks. She felt the grass tickle her feet as she pressed them into the turf. Closing her eyes, she lay back and wondered what she should feel.
‘Where are you Ed?’ The words formed in her mind and she felt a flush of embarrassment. Surely it was daft to be this preoccupied with the memory of him? What could it possibly achieve?
She put the letters on the grass beside her. After a deep breath, she unfolded the first one and began to read.
Dear Kathryn,
See, I said I’d write to you! This is the first letter I’ve written to anyone. Ever! The others are down the pub and I told them I’ll be down later on. Couldn’t tell them I was writing a letter to a girl, I’d never live it down. Hope university is ok. Bet it’s a different scene to racing.
It was so pukka to see you at Brighton last week. Thanks for the card. I’ve got it up on my shelf.
Love Ed
She smiled at her younger self for clearly filing the letters in date order. She remembered how she had felt when this first letter had arrived, holding it with a sense of disbelief. He might have promised to write to her that evening at Brighton Racecourse, but she hadn’t really expected to hear from him again. Reading it repeatedly as she walked to lectures in that second week of term, she felt as if her heart might burst.
Folding it carefully and putting it to one side, she picked up the next one, then the next, smiling in places, wiping away a stray tear elsewhere. The letters felt like a record of long ago events, of how their relationship had deepened as the months passed. In the early letters, he spoke of stable yard news and life in Epsom, but gradually they shifted in tone, page after page about how he felt about being back in Liverpool living with his brother, and then his father. The writing became less neat, less self-conscious. She tried to imagine where he had written them. Was he crouched at the small table in his room? Or in the kitchen, a hand shielding the contents from Paul’s prying eyes?
Unable to resist, she picked up the envelope at the bottom of the pile, with its peeling stamp and faded Liverpool postmark. The letter inside was short, on lined paper, and the ink had faded so that the words were almost ghostly. It was the last letter she had ever received from him. How she wished he had had time to write more. That she could have carried his words with her as she moved through the years.
Hi Kat,
A quick note because I want to catch the post. I can’t talk properly when I ring you with the old man in such a state. He’s always in the background and I don’t want him hearing our conversations.
Seeing you is the one thing I have to look forward to. I was thinking of coming down at the weekend. What do you think? Might get the coach down to uni to see you.
Anyway, bye for now.
Love Ed x
She felt she was back there, in her room in halls, reading these words for the first time and knowing that she couldn’t keep what she had discovered from him any longer. Who she had discovered.
Kathryn couldn’t bring herself to read any of the other letters. If only she hadn’t told him. He wouldn’t have left when he did and what they had together wouldn’t have been severed so that she was left with nothing but a grief, its edges so sharp and jagged that she could hardly move without it tearing her apart.
She decided she had spent long enough on the hillside and would head back to her mother’s bungalow. Maybe find a fish and chip shop in the nearest town to save cooking, ring Alice and have an early night. There was no point sitting here reading old letters. It wouldn’t change anything.
When she returned to the car, she carefully put the envelopes back in the small box. Although perhaps not carefully enough as the corner of one snagged on the soft fabric lining, pulling it away from the wood. As she pressed her fingers on the material to smooth it flat again, she felt a slight thickness. Gently lifting the fabric a little further from the wood, she found another envelope – small and square, like the tiny Christmas cards schoolchildren send each other.
Carefully taking it out, she noticed that this envelope didn’t have an address and a stamp on it like the others. It simply said Kat in his handwriting. She had never seen it before.
The envelope flap was tucked in rather than stuck down and she was glad not to have to tear it. On the card inside was a cute teddy bear cuddling a heart under the words Thank You. Kathryn guessed it must have been bought in a hurry because cute teddies weren’t Ed’s style. She opened it and read.
Kat,
I thought I’d leave this in your room for you to find – maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe years from now if I hide it well enough! I expect you’re reading this now thinking what is he on about. But whenever you read this, I know I’ll be thinking about you. And I’ll be remembering what we’ve done together and what you’ve done for me. It’s nearly a year since we met and I’m already planning what to do for our anniversary. This time I won’t mess up, I promise.
What you don’t realise is that you know me like nobody else does. I see who you really are too. That inner fire. Don’t ever change.
All my love,
Ed x
Her eyes filled with tears and the words started to swim. It was too much to take in. She let herself cry. The box had sat on her bedside cabinet in her room in halls, his letters and other keepsakes inside. He must have slipped the card into the box the morning he left. Hours before he died.
She needed to walk. To cast off this feeling of being buried in the past, in something she couldn’t change, no matter how much she wanted to. She would climb the hill and sit for a moment. The view had always been worth the effort and would help to settle her mind.
She had been here once with Ed. They had climbed the hill from the northern side. As she walked, her mind cast back into her memories of that day. What if she could have done something back then to alter what came next? Made different choices. Made him stay.
She thought again about the figure she had seen walking along the road. She had been convinced it was Ed, but time had rubbed away at that certainty and she now told herself that it couldn’t possibly have been him.
Even though something similar had happened before. Once, she thought she had spotted Alice across the street, only to discover when she got nearer that it was another young woman animatedly talking into her phone. The puffer jacket was the same shade of plum as her daughter’s, the girl’s hair plaited in a similar way, but it wasn’t Alice.
She wondered what Ed would have thought of her now, whether he would have seen the change in her. Would he even recognise her if he passed her here today? Twenty years can make an ocean of difference between what you were and what you became. The woman who had seen her life for what it was and was now looking back at the girl she had been.
She reflected on how much of middle age involved covering up. Not only the signs of age, but its frustrations too. How silent she had stayed as she felt her life peter out into the flatness of routine. She had raged inwardly but her fury had stayed muted. Would her future be any different?
The Ed she had frozen in her mind was on the edge between a teenager and a man. His teenage years were coming to an end but she would never know the man he might become. Their time together had been such a brief snapshot but had remained fast within her as she moved on through the years.
Not for the first time, she played out various scenarios in her mind of how Ed might have aged. Would he have had a family? Would he have settled down and found himself a regular job? Would the light in his eyes have dimmed as he weathered more of what life had in store, as her own light had dimmed?
She was now at the edge of the Ring. Once a ditch protecting the fort, it was now a low, wide indent that rose up gradually to meet a low rampart following the curve of the fort before levelling off into a wooded area.
It seemed a pity to have climbed this far and not to explore the trees. She had plenty of time. Nobody was demanding her return or wondering where she might be.
The late afternoon light, watery and grey, sifted through the branches so that she had to pick her way carefully along the dim pathway. The gnarled and twisting roots of the trees threaded through the earth like tentacles, a web of probing and searching claws that, here and there, emerged through the soft soil, ready to trip anyone who didn’t have their wits about them. The trees towered at either side of her, their branches crisscrossing above to create a ceiling under which there was silence.
As she walked further along the path she realised the silence had been replaced by a low hum, soft at first but gradually becoming louder. She quickly dismissed it as the wind whistling through the trees, but as the sound intensified, it became shriller. She stopped, closed her eyes and discovered that the sound, now high-pitched and piercing, felt as if it was coming from within her.
When she opened her eyes, the trees around her were swaying even though she felt no breeze. The sky, glimpsed through the branches, was no longer a soft grey but seemed to shimmer and sparkle. And, all the while, her head was throbbing with this insufferable noise.
And then it stopped.
The track was now bathed in bright light where it re-emerged on the hillside. As she walked on, the light became more intense. The sun’s rays threaded their way through the branches, dappling the path with light and warming her face. Looking up, she noticed the green canopy of leaves rustling in a gentle breeze.
And then, finally reaching the rampart at the northern edge, she stopped and gazed at the panorama before her.
Chapter 18
Beyond the earth bank, the hillside was bathed in blazing sunshine. Under a cloudless and brilliant blue sky, the downland was a lush green speckled with buttercups and dandelions. Cow parsley swayed in the soft, warm breeze and a bee busied itself in the delicate honeysuckle clinging to the sign pointing along the South Downs Way.
‘So go on, tell me what you saw,’ Elaine urged.
When Kathryn had finished telling her about seeing Ed walking along the road beneath Chanctonbury Hill, Elaine caught the eye of the waitress and said, ‘Two Southern Comfort and lemonades please.’
‘What?’ she said, laughing at Kathryn’s raised eyebrows. ‘We might not have seen each other in forever but I can still remember what you like to drink.’
‘I thought you would have forgotten. It was so long ago. I remember that summer so vividly, but I wasn’t sure you would.’
‘That summer? Or do you mean that whole year when I hardly saw you because you were always with him?’
‘I don’t think I was always with him.’
Elaine nodded, albeit with a smile. ‘You, my girl, were a lost cause. If you weren’t with him, you might as well have been because all you talked about was Ed. And, sorry to say Kathryn, but I just couldn’t see the appeal. Not really. I mean, he was good-looking, I have to admit that much. But not reliable.’
Kathryn gave a half smile. She had lived for twenty years with reliability and found it rather overrated.
‘And then, afterwards, you were inconsolable.’
Kathryn nodded. ‘It was half a lifetime ago but that ache, it’s never gone away. I mean, who’s to say that we wouldn’t have made a go of it?’
‘And that you’d now be settled somewhere with him? Enjoying your life together? Rather than just wallowing in the memory of him? Because that’s what you’ve been attached to all these years, Kathryn. The memory of him.’
What was it with Elaine and the brutal truth, Kathryn thought. Never one to consider how her opinion would land, Elaine said it as she saw it. It had been one of the things that Kathryn had admired when they were young, but now her words wounded her.
Noting her friend’s expression, Elaine continued, this time more softly. ‘Look, don’t mind me, Kathryn. It’s not everyone who gets to feel the way you felt about Ed. It’s a gift. Of sorts. Maybe I’m just envious.’
It didn’t feel like a gift. More of an aching hole that had never been filled.
‘I lost all of his letters years ago. I’d give anything to read them again. It would mean so much. But I have no idea what happened to them.’
The waitress returned with their drinks and Elaine waited until they were alone again before replying.
‘The letters in the green box?’
Kathryn was surprised her friend remembered such a small detail. ‘Yes, I had it in my university room and I thought I brought it back home but it went missing and I was never able to find it. You must have quite a memory if you can remember the colour of a box on my desk in 1993.’
Elaine bit her lip and winced. ‘Please don’t go mad. But I took it.’
‘What?’
‘I did it for your sake, Kathryn. We knew you wouldn’t move on if you kept reading those letters over and over again. You were obsessed. Trying to read new meanings into every word he had ever written to you. We thought it was the best thing.’
‘We?’
‘Your dad suggested it. I’m sorry, but none of us knew what to do with you.’
How was it that so many years could pass and yet the same feelings of frustration and anger, long buried, could rise? And so quickly. It was as if her time with Ed had been reduced to an interlude. A pause between her teenage years, in which she felt smothered by her parents’ expectations, and her years in Ireland where she fitted herself around Mark’s life. With the exception of her time with Ed, she had always done what others thought was best.
‘He had no right to take my things,’ she said icily.
‘Don’t blame your dad. It was both of us.’
Kathryn didn’t reply because words were pointless and she didn’t want to fall out with her newly rediscovered friend.
‘I can fetch them for you now,’ Elaine said nervously. ‘I’ve kept them safe. Maybe I knew you’d come looking for them one day.’
Kathryn gave a tight smile and nodded.
‘I’ll just pay the bill and then nip off for them.’ Elaine said, digging in her bag for her purse.
‘No, I’ll get it,’ said Kathryn. ‘ Is your place nearby? Shall I come with you?’
A look of uncertainty flickered in Elaine’s eyes.
‘No, you stay there. Rob’s working from home today. I’d rather not disturb him if I can. It’s only round the corner. I’ll nip back and get them and I’ll be back before you know it.’
Elaine’s phone had buzzed a couple of times in the last half hour and Kathryn now wondered whether it was Rob. In all these years she hadn’t considered the possibility that Elaine might be with someone who was possessive, who wanted her to break contact with people from her earlier life.
Kathryn paid the bill and had just sat back down to flick through the local newspaper when, true to her word, Elaine was back, holding a blue cloth bag. She handed it to Kathryn who, glancing inside, saw the pattern of the box. Her heart started to race.
Kathryn felt sure that if she started reading the letters, she would be floored by the feelings that would flood through her.
‘Look, I think it’s best if you go read them when you’re alone, without me breathing down your neck.’
Kathryn nodded. ‘Elaine, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been off with you like that. It’s just that people have always thought they’ve known what’s best for me. It was the story of my life… still is, to some degree.’
Elaine put a hand on her friend’s arm. ‘Don’t apologise to me of all people. I remember how it was back then and I also know what it’s like to feel like you’re locked down by life. In a kind of prison.’
‘A gilded cage.’
Elaine smiled faintly. ‘Got it in one. But you know what Kathryn, sometimes you just have to forge ahead with what’s right for you. You know, take no notice of everyone around you, however well-meaning they might be.’
Out on the street, Kathryn hugged her friend and agreed that they’d meet again, and next time for longer. As she watched Elaine cross the road and walk away, she wondered about the life her friend had created for herself, and the discontent she’d alluded to. Would she be able to take her own advice and put her own needs first?
They would talk more before she returned home, but for now, with the letters safely in her bag, Kathryn knew where she needed to go.
Chapter 17
The car park at the bottom of Chanctonbury Hill was larger than she remembered, its spaces marked by freshly painted white lines. A pay and display machine now stood on a raised island in the centre beside a sign bearing a list of instructions: keep your dog on a lead, put litter in bins, beware of nesting birds. As Kathryn pressed the key fob to lock the car, she wondered where she might find instructions for opening doors into the past. How could she do that correctly?
The chalk showed through where centuries of people had trod the turf. The white trail wound its way up the grassy slope, beckoning Kathryn onwards. She had transferred Ed’s letters into her coat pocket and slipped her hand around them, touching the paper he had once touched.
As she walked on, she noticed a couple coming towards her, their golden spaniel darting across the grass, probably on the scent of rabbits. They passed her without pausing their conversation as they walked on downhill.
She was glad to be alone on the hillside, to be able to turn off the path to where she knew the dewpond lay waiting. The turf, more springy and alive than the clay farmland around her home in Ireland, rose gently before the land tipped down into a hollow in which a clear pool of water lay. A hawthorn hedge sheltered two sides of the pond and there was room to pick a spot and sit down, sheltered by the sloping ground and the straggling hedge.
Kathryn felt the grass under the palms of her outstretched hands. She looked up at the bright blue sky and felt at home in the quiet. She unlaced her boots and peeled off her socks. She felt the grass tickle her feet as she pressed them into the turf. Closing her eyes, she lay back and wondered what she should feel.
‘Where are you Ed?’ The words formed in her mind and she felt a flush of embarrassment. Surely it was daft to be this preoccupied with the memory of him? What could it possibly achieve?
She put the letters on the grass beside her. After a deep breath, she unfolded the first one and began to read.
Dear Kathryn,
See, I said I’d write to you! This is the first letter I’ve written to anyone. Ever! The others are down the pub and I told them I’ll be down later on. Couldn’t tell them I was writing a letter to a girl, I’d never live it down. Hope university is ok. Bet it’s a different scene to racing.
It was so pukka to see you at Brighton last week. Thanks for the card. I’ve got it up on my shelf.
Love Ed
She smiled at her younger self for clearly filing the letters in date order. She remembered how she had felt when this first letter had arrived, holding it with a sense of disbelief. He might have promised to write to her that evening at Brighton Racecourse, but she hadn’t really expected to hear from him again. Reading it repeatedly as she walked to lectures in that second week of term, she felt as if her heart might burst.
Folding it carefully and putting it to one side, she picked up the next one, then the next, smiling in places, wiping away a stray tear elsewhere. The letters felt like a record of long ago events, of how their relationship had deepened as the months passed. In the early letters, he spoke of stable yard news and life in Epsom, but gradually they shifted in tone, page after page about how he felt about being back in Liverpool living with his brother, and then his father. The writing became less neat, less self-conscious. She tried to imagine where he had written them. Was he crouched at the small table in his room? Or in the kitchen, a hand shielding the contents from Paul’s prying eyes?
Unable to resist, she picked up the envelope at the bottom of the pile, with its peeling stamp and faded Liverpool postmark. The letter inside was short, on lined paper, and the ink had faded so that the words were almost ghostly. It was the last letter she had ever received from him. How she wished he had had time to write more. That she could have carried his words with her as she moved through the years.
Hi Kat,
A quick note because I want to catch the post. I can’t talk properly when I ring you with the old man in such a state. He’s always in the background and I don’t want him hearing our conversations.
Seeing you is the one thing I have to look forward to. I was thinking of coming down at the weekend. What do you think? Might get the coach down to uni to see you.
Anyway, bye for now.
Love Ed x
She felt she was back there, in her room in halls, reading these words for the first time and knowing that she couldn’t keep what she had discovered from him any longer. Who she had discovered.
Kathryn couldn’t bring herself to read any of the other letters. If only she hadn’t told him. He wouldn’t have left when he did and what they had together wouldn’t have been severed so that she was left with nothing but a grief, its edges so sharp and jagged that she could hardly move without it tearing her apart.
She decided she had spent long enough on the hillside and would head back to her mother’s bungalow. Maybe find a fish and chip shop in the nearest town to save cooking, ring Alice and have an early night. There was no point sitting here reading old letters. It wouldn’t change anything.
When she returned to the car, she carefully put the envelopes back in the small box. Although perhaps not carefully enough as the corner of one snagged on the soft fabric lining, pulling it away from the wood. As she pressed her fingers on the material to smooth it flat again, she felt a slight thickness. Gently lifting the fabric a little further from the wood, she found another envelope – small and square, like the tiny Christmas cards schoolchildren send each other.
Carefully taking it out, she noticed that this envelope didn’t have an address and a stamp on it like the others. It simply said Kat in his handwriting. She had never seen it before.
The envelope flap was tucked in rather than stuck down and she was glad not to have to tear it. On the card inside was a cute teddy bear cuddling a heart under the words Thank You. Kathryn guessed it must have been bought in a hurry because cute teddies weren’t Ed’s style. She opened it and read.
Kat,
I thought I’d leave this in your room for you to find – maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe years from now if I hide it well enough! I expect you’re reading this now thinking what is he on about. But whenever you read this, I know I’ll be thinking about you. And I’ll be remembering what we’ve done together and what you’ve done for me. It’s nearly a year since we met and I’m already planning what to do for our anniversary. This time I won’t mess up, I promise.
What you don’t realise is that you know me like nobody else does. I see who you really are too. That inner fire. Don’t ever change.
All my love,
Ed x
Her eyes filled with tears and the words started to swim. It was too much to take in. She let herself cry. The box had sat on her bedside cabinet in her room in halls, his letters and other keepsakes inside. He must have slipped the card into the box the morning he left. Hours before he died.
She needed to walk. To cast off this feeling of being buried in the past, in something she couldn’t change, no matter how much she wanted to. She would climb the hill and sit for a moment. The view had always been worth the effort and would help to settle her mind.
She had been here once with Ed. They had climbed the hill from the northern side. As she walked, her mind cast back into her memories of that day. What if she could have done something back then to alter what came next? Made different choices. Made him stay.
She thought again about the figure she had seen walking along the road. She had been convinced it was Ed, but time had rubbed away at that certainty and she now told herself that it couldn’t possibly have been him.
Even though something similar had happened before. Once, she thought she had spotted Alice across the street, only to discover when she got nearer that it was another young woman animatedly talking into her phone. The puffer jacket was the same shade of plum as her daughter’s, the girl’s hair plaited in a similar way, but it wasn’t Alice.
She wondered what Ed would have thought of her now, whether he would have seen the change in her. Would he even recognise her if he passed her here today? Twenty years can make an ocean of difference between what you were and what you became. The woman who had seen her life for what it was and was now looking back at the girl she had been.
She reflected on how much of middle age involved covering up. Not only the signs of age, but its frustrations too. How silent she had stayed as she felt her life peter out into the flatness of routine. She had raged inwardly but her fury had stayed muted. Would her future be any different?
The Ed she had frozen in her mind was on the edge between a teenager and a man. His teenage years were coming to an end but she would never know the man he might become. Their time together had been such a brief snapshot but had remained fast within her as she moved on through the years.
Not for the first time, she played out various scenarios in her mind of how Ed might have aged. Would he have had a family? Would he have settled down and found himself a regular job? Would the light in his eyes have dimmed as he weathered more of what life had in store, as her own light had dimmed?
She was now at the edge of the Ring. Once a ditch protecting the fort, it was now a low, wide indent that rose up gradually to meet a low rampart following the curve of the fort before levelling off into a wooded area.
It seemed a pity to have climbed this far and not to explore the trees. She had plenty of time. Nobody was demanding her return or wondering where she might be.
The late afternoon light, watery and grey, sifted through the branches so that she had to pick her way carefully along the dim pathway. The gnarled and twisting roots of the trees threaded through the earth like tentacles, a web of probing and searching claws that, here and there, emerged through the soft soil, ready to trip anyone who didn’t have their wits about them. The trees towered at either side of her, their branches crisscrossing above to create a ceiling under which there was silence.
As she walked further along the path she realised the silence had been replaced by a low hum, soft at first but gradually becoming louder. She quickly dismissed it as the wind whistling through the trees, but as the sound intensified, it became shriller. She stopped, closed her eyes and discovered that the sound, now high-pitched and piercing, felt as if it was coming from within her.
When she opened her eyes, the trees around her were swaying even though she felt no breeze. The sky, glimpsed through the branches, was no longer a soft grey but seemed to shimmer and sparkle. And, all the while, her head was throbbing with this insufferable noise.
And then it stopped.
The track was now bathed in bright light where it re-emerged on the hillside. As she walked on, the light became more intense. The sun’s rays threaded their way through the branches, dappling the path with light and warming her face. Looking up, she noticed the green canopy of leaves rustling in a gentle breeze.
And then, finally reaching the rampart at the northern edge, she stopped and gazed at the panorama before her.
Chapter 18
Beyond the earth bank, the hillside was bathed in blazing sunshine. Under a cloudless and brilliant blue sky, the downland was a lush green speckled with buttercups and dandelions. Cow parsley swayed in the soft, warm breeze and a bee busied itself in the delicate honeysuckle clinging to the sign pointing along the South Downs Way.
