Thea
Looking back, I wonder whether our holiday had been to blame. Two weeks of unexpectedly perfect weather at Easter, when the girls had gambolled like lambs in the fields surrounding the farm where we had stayed, and even Drew had lost the pinched look he so often wore. His stride had lengthened, his shoulders had relaxed, and he just looked… content. As for me, I’d found a freedom I hadn’t experienced in years. Something stirred in me that holiday and, whatever it was, it wouldn’t lie back down. Was it just nostalgia, or something deeper? I don’t know, but it grew inside of me just as surely as the two girls I had once carried.
It wasn’t as if we were unhappy. Sure, things had been difficult when Chloe and Lauren were little, but show me a family with young children where things don’t get fraught. We got through it and, although the girls and our lives filled our three-bedroom terrace house to the rafters, I never thought I hated it, not really, not until two weeks of space and fresh air and love, actually, made me realise how cramped we all were. Not just our house, but us, everything that made us who we were, was being slowly crushed to death. So when I stumbled across the details for Pevensey House I knew I had found a way for us to be free, to settle the thing that had stirred inside of me, and I didn’t hesitate. I should have done, I realise that now.
Drew
I should have been firmer. I knew it was a mistake to go back, but I was kidding myself too. I wanted it just as much as Thea did. She hadn’t had an easy time of things after Lauren was born. The birth was difficult, and it drained her, robbing her of her usually sunny disposition for months, but she never once complained. Even when Lauren’s temper tantrums reached their peak, aged two, Thea looked after us all, juggling things, balancing; everything in her life a trade-off for something else. And I guess I just wanted more for her too.
Seeing her on that holiday reminded me of the Thea I first met, the one who walked barefoot everywhere, the one whose fits of giggles exploded out of nowhere. It made me realise how beautiful she was, how much I loved her. And her work? It came to life during those two weeks, the best she’d ever produced – winning the commission was evidence enough of that. So how could I possibly hold her back, just when she had found her wings.
Besides, who wouldn’t want to live at Pevensey? It was gorgeous. Warm mellow stone, huge windows letting in more light than you knew what to do with, and space, so much space… No, I was yearning for the change just as much as she was, anything to be free from the tyranny of the commute and Roger’s caustic comments day in, day out. But I knew the danger and I let us walk right into it. So if anyone was to blame it was me, but instead I blamed Thea. And, when it came down to it, that’s what everything was about, wasn’t it? Who was to blame…
The photo is a little bent now, but it’s one I remember well. I’ve looked at it many times over the years: two children playing almost naked in the garden – him, with a face smeared in mud and missing at least four teeth; and her, long straggly hair, a little on the pudgy side, holding up a worm for inspection. Me and Drew. Drew and me. Scarcely one without the other.
I angle the photo a little more toward the light, trying to see the detail, smiling as I wonder how Drew could ever have fallen for such an unremarkable child as me. But he had. We’d grown up together and somehow we’d never stopped. Back then we lived next door to one another, and even when one family moved, the other followed so we managed to stay in each other’s orbit. I’m thirty-four now and so is Drew and, apart from five excruciating years when we were both studying at different universities, we’ve always been together. I’m still unremarkable. A little on the short side, with chin-length, dark, bobbed hair which spends its day tucked behind my ears, and only a smattering of freckles to bring my face to life. I have nice skin though, I’ve always liked my skin. Drew, however, is far from unremarkable. Drew is simply gorgeous. In the right light he can pass for Jude Law, but more important than the way he looks is the way he makes me feel.
The Celts have a term for it – Anam Cara. It means ‘soul friend’ and that’s exactly what we are. Drew teases me when I say such things, rolling his eyes in mock exasperation as he walks away. But I catch the little smile on his face as he does so, and I know he feels the same way.
I drop the photo back in the box, resisting the temptation to take out another. I’m supposed to be working, or packing, or both. But instead I’ve been sitting here for the best part of an hour, sifting through the recorded moments of our lives before my parents moved us away from Pevensey House and our sleepy corner of Shropshire. There were plenty more photos from the years after we moved, but these have always been my favourites. Pictures from a golden childhood.
My legs have gone to sleep from kneeling on the floor and I get to my feet, trying to work some feeling back into them. I know I’ve wasted too much time and a glance at the clock confirms it, but I couldn’t resist this trip down memory lane. We move in just over a week’s time and I’ll be able to pack most of our things methodically and efficiently, but somehow all these mementoes, all these feelings, needed one last airing before I temporarily shut them away. One last stocktake of the past before we start our new adventure.
It’s a Friday in late July and our girls finish school today for the summer. In fact, for our youngest, Lauren, it’s the end of her infant education. In September she’ll be moving into the juniors, but it will be a new school for both her and Chloe. They’re growing up so fast that some days I feel like I can’t keep up with them, but I’m hoping that once we move we’ll all be able to slow down. Time moves differently in the country somehow. I’m so looking forward to long, carefree summer days, away from noise and bustle, perhaps more for Drew’s benefit than anything. I’m looking forward to seeing the crease above the bridge of his nose soften. To seeing the slightly distracted air he often wears to dissipate, and to see him reading a book of an evening, just like he used to before his grinding days and the commute rendered him senseless.
I still can’t quite believe we got so lucky. But that’s how I know how right this is. Things don’t fall into place quite so easily unless they’re meant to be, and six short weeks was all it took. I guess our holiday, deep in the rolling countryside back at Easter, was the start of it, but as soon as we came back things were different. It was as if I’d learned how to magically turn on the tap of my creativity; my work seemed brighter, more confident, more alive. I know winning the V&A Illustration Award last year helped enormously, but my submission for the Kathryn Talbot series was the best work I’ve ever produced. When I found out in June that I’d gained the commission I knew that something magical was about to happen.
Three days later, Drew came home and dropped the bombshell that he’d applied for and been granted voluntary redundancy. He’d worked for Franklin and Wilks since gaining his degree, it’s the reason we moved to London in the first place, but he’d done all he could there. He’d started as an architect’s assistant and had risen through the ranks, making partner three years ago. Except that Roger, the colleague who thought he should have got the promotion instead of Drew, had made his life hell. And Drew isn’t a pushover by any means, but it was wearing, constantly trying to parry Roger’s pathetic attempts at undermining him. While we were on holiday Drew told me that the company was going through a tough time and might have to make a couple of junior architects redundant, but perhaps our holiday had ignited his yearning for freedom too. Or maybe it was just the boiling-hot June day that had finally brought him to the end of his tether, I don’t know.
The thought had terrified me at first but, as we’d lain together that night, trying to block out the noise of the near-constant London traffic, he’d confessed that what he really longed to do was start his own business. He’d been working on and off for the past couple of years on designs of his own, what he called his honeycomb houses: low-cost, flexible pods that could be built singly or attached to each other to give an infinitely increasing space. It was a project he was passionate about developing. He had the money from his redundancy and we had a home in London that was worth far more than it should have been. Perhaps now might be a good time to make some changes, he’d said.
Spotting my old family home for sale only a week later had surely been the hand of fate at work. I’d been sitting in the dentist’s waiting room of all places, flicking through the glossy magazines, when there it was – in the Fine & Country section. Pevensey House. The last piece of the jigsaw fell into place and the rest, as they say, is history.
I close the box lid and pick up a roll of Sellotape, ripping off a section with my teeth and sealing our memories shut. I need to get a move on or I’m going to be late picking up the girls. Then it’s on to their last piano lesson, a dash to the market to grab what I need to make dinner and then, finally, I can wait for the sound of Drew’s key in the door and we will all be home. The end, but also a beginning.
It’s only when I move that I realise how stifling it is up here. This tiny attic space is where I work, illustrating children’s books, and the only place in our house where my drawing board doesn’t need to be tidied away, leaving it ready to pick up where I left off. It’s cosy in winter but, with only two small roof lights, it gets hardly any breeze and it’s a relief to descend into the lower part of the house. I grab a glass of water from the kitchen, holding it for a moment against my pink cheek before swallowing the liquid in one continual motion. I pause to mentally gather myself for the onslaught outside and then, flicking a glance at my reflection as I pass the mirror in the hallway, I pick up my bag and let myself out into the busy street.
It wasn’t always this way. Or perhaps it’s just that my perception of it has changed. When we first moved here the street was wide and tree-lined and at times seemed quite peaceful. But now, although the street is just as wide, the trees just as present, it thrums with a restless energy that never stops. There are cars and people and buses and dogs. Noise from traffic, radios, the odd shout, babies crying, and I swear today I can hear the pavements creaking with the heat. And in among this, incongruously, slotted between a gap in the buildings, is St Hilda’s Primary School. The metal is hot to touch as I push open the gate into the playground.
Despite my panic about being late, I’m somehow earlier than usual and I stand in my habitual spot, nodding at my tribe as they pass. It isn’t long before I spot Rachel and I move slightly to accommodate her beside me. She blows a puff of air up her face, trying to get her fringe to unglue itself from her forehead.
‘I am so glad I won’t be doing this for a while,’ she says.
We all are. I can see it on everyone’s faces around me; the relief that the summer term is over and with it an end to the ceaseless clock-watching and monotony of the drop-off and pick-up.
I grin at my friend. ‘And I’m so glad I won’t be doing this ever again – well, here at least.’
She pulls a face at that. ‘What am I going to do without you?’ she wails, and I slide an arm around her waist, squishing her into a sideways hug. We stand that way for a moment, both thinking about our respective futures, until I pull away, turning to face her.
‘What you are going to do is make sure you find the time to come and visit us. I mean it, Rach. Properly visit us. I know we’re going to be just that little bit too far to come for the day but, if you think about it, that makes it even better. You can come and stay for the weekend, or even longer. We can be your holiday home in the country.’
I mean it and she smiles, but we both know it probably won’t turn out like that. Not because we don’t want it to, but because life has a habit of getting in the way, and what seems easy and simple often turns out to be difficult and complicated. And time just slips past. Before you know it, you haven’t seen one another in so long that it becomes embarrassing and so more time goes by. But I hope not. I don’t know what I’d have done without Rach.
I know nearly every single mum standing in this playground, and some of the dads too, but none of them are my friends, not really. We’ve shared conversations, and jokes, had coffee together even, but I wouldn’t cry in front of any of them like I have with Rachel. You know, the kind of crying where snot pours out your nose and you don’t care. Like the time when we thought Chloe had meningitis and when my father died. I got chatting to Rachel about a week after Chloe first started school and we’ve been friends ever since. Her husband, Gerry, is great too. Maybe it’s because he’s a paramedic and deals in death and destruction on a daily basis, but he has the most wicked sense of humour; it’s positively evil, but I love it and I’m going to miss them both so much.
Rachel squeezes my arm. ‘I’ll let you get settled in first…’ But then she gives a cheeky grin. ‘How about the week after you move in?’
‘Deal.’
She runs a hand up her arm as if brushing away an insect. ‘Seriously though,’ she says. ‘You know how pleased I am for you, Thea. All that space for the girls, a brand-new studio for you and Drew, and a new business for him too. It couldn’t happen to two nicer people. You deserve it, you really do.’
I run a finger underneath my eye. ‘Don’t,’ I say. ‘Or you’ll have me blubbing like a baby.’ And I think I detect a little gleam in her eye too.
Rachel sighs. ‘I can’t imagine ever having memories like you have. My childhood was just a series of almost identical houses on whichever air-force base my dad was working out of. I’ve always longed to have roots…’
‘You’ll get your dream, Rach, I know you will. Two years from now you’ll be running your catering business from a big old farmhouse with roses round the door. And Jamie will be skipping around with bare feet and permanently sun-kissed cheeks, you wait and see.’
Rachel grimaces, eyeing the other mums on the playground. ‘Meanwhile, I’d better hope this lot keep having dinner parties, anniversaries and just a little evening soiree, Rachel, you know the kind of thing.’
I grin. I do know the kind of thing. It’s one of the reasons l like Rachel so much; she hates the London social scene just as much as I do.
A shout catches her attention and she looks up to see Jamie hurtling across the playground. His breaking free from the ranks of his other classmates draws a look of consternation from his teacher, but it’s the last day of term and she clearly hasn’t the energy left to remonstrate with him. Rachel gives a little wave, acknowledging the receipt of her child as he barrels into her, and the teacher continues releasing her charges to the waiting parents.
Chloe is in the same class as Jamie, and Lauren is in the one below, and eventually all three children are present and correct and we’re able to make our way to the school gates. It always amazes me how quickly everyone disappears and today the process seems faster than usual, people melting away, eager to get their holidays started. Chloe tugs at my sleeve.
‘Look at what I got, Mum,’ she says. She fishes in her backpack and pulls out a carrier bag filled with presents. ‘And Emily Hewson’s mum made me a cake, but we ate it all at break.’
There’s an assortment of girly wrapping paper but among it are rubbers, new pencils, a pencil case, some lip salves and three little notebooks tied up with ribbon.
‘And Mrs Stenning got me a card.’ She fishes back in the bag, her lip caught between her teeth. ‘Oh… I can’t find it. Never mind, I’ll show you when we get home. Have we got time for an ice cream?’
It’s the first time her sister’s face lights up. Lauren probably has a similar assortment of going-away presents from her friends, but she’s never shared Chloe’s penchant for sparkly new possessions and so the prospect of an ice cream is far more appealing.
‘A promise is a promise…’
The girls squeal, Chloe thrusting her school bag at me and linking arms with Lauren. I throw Rachel a look and she laughs.
‘I’d better let you go,’ she says and we hug again but, almost immediately, her face falls slightly. ‘I’ll see you soon, yeah?’
I nod, realising the girls are already walking away.
‘Yes, soon,’ I reply, knowing that the countdown has begun, the times we’ll be together becoming fewer and fewer until there are none left. I wave as we slip through the gate and then suddenly we’re back out on the busy street.
‘Hold my hand!’ I call to Lauren, waiting until she does as asked, her hot fingers slick in mine. I need a cool shower and a glass of something even colder, never mind an ice cream.
It’s nearly six o’clock by the time we push open our front door and the day still hasn’t relinquished its grip on the heat that has built up. The girls run for the kitchen as soon as we arrive and I juggle with the shopping for a moment before hanging up their book bags on the hallway pegs one last time. Just off the kitchen, the tiny back garden is in full sun but I push open the door to it anyway, hoping that a breeze might find its way into the house. Then I turn on the cold water tap and let it run.
‘Uniforms!’ I shout at the girls’ retreating backs, ten minutes, a glass of water and a biscuit later. It’s our Friday-night routine, and has been for so long I scarcely even think about it. But we are home and my stomach flips in excitement at the thought of the coming day.
Drew returns home even later than usual. He looks hot and battered, the end of a week which, given the fact he’s leaving, has probably been much worse than normal. His face shows a mixture of things: an overarching tiredness, the release from the enforced patience that the commute requires, the lowering of the shields that life in London necessitates and, perhaps, pleasure at having accomplished all that he needed. Relief is not there, not yet. But it will come. Probably not straight away, but in the next few weeks, slowly, as the realisation of a life left behind steals over him. For now, the house is quiet, the girls away in their rooms, and that is all he needs.
He sits on a swivel chair at the breakfast bar, his leather case on the counter, and I move so that I’m standing beside him. I turn his seat towards me, catching at the ends of his tie, sliding the knot even further down its length until I can remove it completely. I drop it next to his bag. I run my hands through the wavy tendrils of his hair, pressing my fingers into his hot scalp in a way I know brings relief, and gently pull his head towards me so that it rests against my chest.
‘Done?’ I ask.
‘Done,’ he replies. And for a long moment there is nothing else to say.
When he finally raises his head, a small smile has formed on his face and he gets to his feet, sliding a hand around the nape of my neck and kissing my lips. He’s at least a foot taller than I am. There’s a cool drink waiting for him on the side and by the time he reaches it, drinking steadily and gratefully, he is already coming back to life.
‘Where are the girls?’ he asks.
‘Upstairs.’ They’ve already had their tea and a bath and are now cooler in clean pyjamas, waiting patiently for their storyteller to arrive.
He nods, grinning, as he makes his way to the door. He turns at the last minute. ‘Did you manage to get the broadband sorted out?’
‘I did. Pevensey House will be fully connected by the time we move in.’
‘Thanks, love.’ He’s too tired to tick anything else off his mental list, but this is important.
‘And I’ve got someone lined up to give us a quote for the work that needs doing in the studio. Even better is that he has a free couple of weeks so, if everything works out, he can get things underway almost immediately.’
Drew grins. ‘Studio,’ he says, blue eyes twinkling. ‘I like the sound of that.’
I like the sound of it too. Of course, it isn’t a studio yet, it’s just an old garden room that adjoins one side of the house, but it will be. A place to begin work on my new commission. It’s big; illustrating the books of one of my favourite children’s authors, and important too. Getting this right will open all sorts of doors for me and I know Pevensey will be just the place to make this happen.
Drew holds my look for a moment, reflecting my own excitement back at me. And then he is gone, leaving me to finish preparing supper.
It’s only just gone ten when we get to bed, the room muggy and barely even dark. I turn down the sheet and climb in beside Drew, the soft light shading the contours of his body.
‘Did you ring your mum?’ he murmurs, as I lean in to kiss him goodnight.
‘No, not yet… I got busy with something else.’
His eyes open a fraction. ‘Thea…’
‘I’ll do it tomorrow, promise. There’s plenty of time.’
He nods, his eyes locking with mine and, despite the heat and our tiredness, there is a moment when I think that we’re not going to leave it there. And then Drew lifts a hand to the side of my face.
‘I don’t think I can, sorry…’
But I don’t mind because, as I turn, his hand snakes over my hip to rest in the dip of my waist as it always does, and his foot slides against mine. I am home with the man I love, and who loves me.
Minutes later we’re both asleep.
Pevensey House is showing its age a little, but it’s still beautiful. Built during the Victorian era, it spent a good portion of its life as the village rectory but has long since relinquished that role to the much smaller, more modern – and inevitably cheaper to run – vicarage at the other end of the village. I’d no idea as a child, and still don’t, how long ago Pevensey became a family home, but I’m not really interested in its history today, just how it makes me feel.
There’s a whole kaleidoscope of butterflies in my stomach as we navigate the narrow lane beside the church. We’d only made one quick visit to the house before we bought it. A little foolish perhaps, but it really hadn’t seemed necessary given that I could still remember every inch of it. In fact, I think we’d only gone in the first place to check that the estate agents weren’t lying about its condition after all these years. Not surprisingly, I’d taken nothing in on that occasion. I’d been far too excited and overawed to be back and I’d let my memory be my guide. Today, I’m terrified that my eleven-year-old eyes have lent my thirty-four-year old ones an impression of the house that bears no resemblance to reality. But I needn’t have worried, it is just as I remember.
The lane widens just beyond the church, sweeping around the rear boundary of the graveyard to the left, and the beech hedges and horse chestnut trees that border Pevensey’s gardens on the right. At the top of the lane lies Rose Cottage where Drew and his parents used to live. Someone has painted the outside a pretty shade of pale pink since his time there, but everything else about the setting is achingly familiar, right down to the row of hollyhocks that peep over one side of our five-bar gate.
Drew brings the car to a standstill just in front of it and we tumble out, stretching and happy to be freed from the confines of the hot vehicle. A breeze lifts a line of dust from the road, scattering leaves as it goes, and the dappled light from the trees overhead paints the lane with moving shadows. But other than that, all is still. There are no other cars and no people, birdsong the only noise. I can feel the tension sliding from me with every breath.
Drew opens the gate and I get to look properly at the house that was home for the first eleven years of my life. It sits at the rear of a gravelled forecourt, warm mellow stone softened even further by a Virginia creeper that will need a very good prune come the spring. There is a wide porch, with two windows to the right – the dining room – and three to the left – the study and the bigger of the two sitting rooms. The roof is slate with a chimney at either end. Away to our left is a timber car port with a shed attached and, to the right, gardens as far as I can see. My breath catches in my throat.
With an excited cry, Chloe streaks away from me, heading for the open space that must seem even more enormous from her child’s perspective. Compared with our tiny garden back in London this is a paradise and the thought of what we’ve given our girls blossoms inside of me. I wait while she runs a wide circle on the grass before returning to us, panting slightly, and gazing wide-eyed at the house.
‘Right then. Who wants to look inside?’ I ask.
We sprint for the door as if the driveway has suddenly become a mass of boiling lava and fidget impatiently while Drew tries to find the right key.
‘Daddy, come on…’ whines Chloe. ‘I want to see my bedroom.’
I look down at Lauren. ‘And how about you, sweetheart?’ I say. ‘What do you thin. . .
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