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Kate lowered herself onto the wooden floor and took her time. Strangers’ faces grinned out of each page. Nanny Cornwall had her arm around a different man in every photo. What struck Kate the most was the house. She saw it only as bricks and mortar, but in the faded photographs it was a place full of life. It was a far cry from the prim matriarchal portrait of Nanny Cornwall painted by her mum. At the back of the album was an envelope, fresh white, unlike the yellowing photographic paper. Kate stared at the envelope in her hands, her own nameKatherinemarring white with black. Her hands shook as she tore the seal and pulled out a piece of thick cream paper.
Dear Katherine,
I suspect the correct etiquette would have been to leave this letter with my will, but I don’t want it being read by a stuffy solicitor type. If you’ve found it, the house will now be yours, and I will be gone. We never had a chance to get to know one another in life, but I hope by being here, you will develop a sense of who I really was. Not the person your mother made me out to be. Sorry, if I’m dead, it’s time to let bygones be bygones. I shall be more careful with my words going forward.
The truth is, I did want to know you. I wanted to be part of your life. Please don’t solely blame either myself or your mother for our estrangement, we were equally to blame. I never forgave her for taking your father from me, and she never forgave me for taking him back from her. Two stubborn women are an unfortunate combination, and we were both stubborn all right.
Anyway, enough about the past. You are reading this in your present. You may have decided to sell the house, which is entirely your right. But something makes me think you’ll stay, and if you do, I have some requests;
-The house has welcomed many people over the years (as you’ll see from the photographs). In recent years I’ve not been able to maintain my ‘open house’, but you bring with you a fresh start. Fill the house with love and laughter, and wine (or beer or whisky, if that’s your tipple of choice).
-Spend your life doing what you love. The money I’ve left you won’t go far in today’s world, but it will buy you some time. Don’t settle, don’t chase money, find what brings you fulfilment and pursue that above all else. Remember that fulfilment is different from happiness. This modern obsession with being happy is a recipe for disaster. Life is full of sadness, but that makes the moments of joy shine all the brighter.
-For all I know, you might be married, but if you’re not, don’t settle for any man. Find someone who treats you well, who loves you as much as you love him (or her if that’s your persuasion). Remember, relationships take work. Another terrible modern idea is that of the ‘perfect man’. Trust me, dear, such a thing doesn’t exist. People are fallible. Rate kindness above all other qualities.
Here endeth the lesson. In other words, these are the things I wish I had told you in person, but never got the chance. Speaking of which, I’ll quickly add in one final request- DON’T HOLD A GRUDGE! I did, and it cost me you.
Anyway dear, I expect you have a lot to be getting on with. That old sofa needs replacing, for starters. Go well, be kind, and have a wonderful life.
All my love,
Moira (Nanny Cornwall)
Kate folded the letter carefully and laid it on the floor in front of her. The last thing she wanted was to smudge the ink with her tears. The woman who wrote it sounded like someone she would have wanted to know, to spend time with. Quite how she would fill the house with love and laughter when she didn’t know a soul in the town and spent most nights crying herself to sleep over Alex, she couldn’t say. But at least she had something to aspire to. The thought of finding out more about Moira sent a shiver of excitement through her.
Kate wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve and packed the photo album and letter away to return to later. There were practical matters to attend to. She could wallow in her emotions once she had a house that looked less like a bomb site and a comfortable place to sleep that night. Having failed in her mission to find anything resembling bedding, it looked like she’d either be sleeping on bare floorboards, or a trip to the local supermarket was in order. The hired van was more than earning its keep.
CHAPTER FIVE
AFTER THE SOLITUDEof house clearing in a small town, the noise, smells and bustle of the city hit Kate’s senses like a freight train. Since arriving back in Bath, the word she’d uttered most was ‘sorry’, jostling against people as she navigated the busy streets like a ball in a pinball machine. Kate parked the van as close as she could to her flat, but needed caffeine before she could face the task of dismantling her old life.
Half an hour after arriving, Kate settled herself down on a set of endless steps and took a sip of her Americano. The steps emitted a faint whiff of urine, but Kate ignored it, taking a large bite out of a bagel, and wiping her chin as cream cheese and sweet chilli sauce dribbled down it.
Maddie had been in regular contact all week, giving Kate a hundred and one reasons why leaving the city was a bad idea. Some came close to persuading her, but being back in Bath brought no twinge of regret. As soon as Kate entered its boundary, the old, familiar feelings returned.You’re not good enough, Kate. You’re too anti-social, Kate. Why can’t you sort your life out, Kate?Perhaps in Bodmin she’d be kinder to herself. It was worth a try.
Licking the final stickiness of the bagel from her fingers, Kate abandoned the steps and began the short walk to her flat. There was a reassuring familiarity to the streets, but the memories they held were not happy ones, despite the beauty and grandeur of their architecture. The road climbed upwards and Kate found herself outside a tired Georgian building, divided into twelve flats many years ago. She pulled a key from her pocket, took a deep breath, and stepped inside.
Kate had taken the flat for two reasons; money and light. It had been the cheapest flat she could find, remarkably so for its central location. She knew there would be a reason for the price tag, which there was. It was a studio, which Kate always thought sounded romantic, like she should be creating vast oil paintings inside it, but in reality it just meant all she had to her name was one room. The enormous windows at either end were magnificent, but their magnificence was dimmed by the moss that framed each pane, peeling wood squishy beneath her fingers. If someone wanted to break in, they’d have no trouble; none of the window locks worked. Kate had consoled herself by thinking how useful it would be if she ever forgot her key.
The flat looked tired and empty. Alex had persuaded her to get rid of most of her furniture when she moved in with him, and after he kicked her out, she’d never got round to replacing it. A pine bed stood against the wall in the middle of the room. It doubled as a sofa, and Kate had bought massive cushions to go along its headboard for when she was reading or watching TV on the laptop. A matching orange pine kitchenette lay against the opposite wall, cupboard doors hanging awkwardly from their hinges, black filling the spaces between tiles where white should have been.
Kate began taking clothes from the flat pack wardrobe she’d bought from Argos. She thought of the sturdy old wardrobe in Bodmin, standing the test of time better than this flimsy combination of wood and calico ever could. Kate knelt down beside her bed and pulled a shoe-box from under it. All her memories of family were shoved into the one box, a pitiful reminder of how dysfunctional family life had been. In friends’ houses, family portraits adorned the walls, certificates from music exams and swimming competitions stood proudly on polished cabinets. All Kate had was one manky shoe box covered in dust.
The thick layer of dust and grime flew up into a cloud as Kate blew across the lid. Inside the open box lay a handful of photographs. She took the closest one, a picture of her dad. She could barely remember the man who smiled so happily out at her. He must have been in his late teens or early twenties when the photo was taken, for there were no drug-ravaged signs on his face. He had a full set of teeth and his muscular body was a far cry from the thin shell he would occupy a few short years later. He stood bare chested, hands on his hips, clothed in a tight pair of swimming trunks and squinting against the sun. Kate wasn’t sure where the photo had been taken but it would have been somewhere in Cornwall. He’d only left once, a foray so disastrous he’d returned home only six months later.
Beneath the beach photo was the only photo she had of them as a family unit. It was her first birthday and both her parents squished their faces close to hers, a birthday cake with one candle on a table in front of them. Her parents were smiling, her mum looked beautiful, long shiny hair falling across a paisley dress, red lipstick highlighting her full lips and perfect teeth. The only sign of disquiet was the glass of wine in her hand; the poison which would eventually take her the same way as Dad, but not before it had put both mother and daughter through twenty years of torture.
Kate enjoyed a drink, but her dark family history sat like a stone on her shoulder and she had only ever been drunk once. It had been at uni, and the experience scared her so much it was weeks before she risked another drop of alcohol. A memory flashed through Kate’s mind, hauling Alex up the steps to their house, just making it through the door before he vomited all over her. He’d been mortified the next morning, made her breakfast in bed despite his huge hangover. He could be sweet like that. God, she missed him.
Kate wondered if she were a witch, for at that very moment her phone vibrated, Alex’s smiling face staring out from the screen. Her thumb hovered above the green icon, but she opted for red and cut him off. The phone buzzed again. Perhaps there was no harm speaking to him once, to say goodbye. Kate was setting off on a new adventure. Unlike the previous few months, she actually had some news that didn’t make her sound like a desperate loser. She hit the green button and pulled the phone to her ear.
“Hello?” Alex sounded surprised.
“Yep, what do you want?”
“Oh, hi. I wasn’t expecting you to pick up.”
“So you called for no reason.”
