AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I know.’ Carrie swallowed the lump that thickened her throat. ‘I… I was wrong. I’ve had to start working through a lot of stuff.’ She thought of June, at the hospital, holding her in her arms and saying,It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.Carrie wondered how long it would be until she truly believed that. ‘I thought… I was blaming myself for the accident, too. And I guess I thought you blamed me. I was in the car and I survived.’
‘Why on earth would I blame you? It was an accident. That boy was speeding, he went straight into you. You’re lucky to be alive.’ Graham looked dumbfounded. ‘Is that what was worrying you, all this time?’
‘Partly.’ Carrie looked away, into the little room with the television that led off the bar. There was no one in it today; in fact, they were the only people in the bar. ‘After the accident… I thought I could have saved her too. I thought she could have had one of my kidneys but that my being unconscious had stopped that happening,’ she sighed. ‘I realise now that I couldn’t have saved her.’
‘You couldn’t have. She… the damage, it was…’ He paused, his voice breaking. ‘You know what I’m saying.’
‘I know.’ Carrie took another sip of her drink and placed it back down on the table carefully. There was a silence; she didn’t know what else to say.
‘What did you do with her stuff, in the end?’ Graham cleared his throat. He had taken some things that were special to him, Carrie knew.
‘It’s mostly in storage. I don’t know what to do with it, really. Some of the stuff I’ll take wherever I end up moving to. Her clothes, personal stuff like jewellery… I just can’t bring myself to get rid of them yet, you know?’ Carrie’s stomach twisted, thinking about all of Claire’s things, alone and unloved, in boxes in the soulless storage facility she was hiring. ‘The other part of that is, I don’t know what I’m doing next. I came here to escape, but I can’t stay here forever. Especially as I had a little part-time job tiding me over, but that’s not happening now either. I need to… I dunno. Rejoin life.’ She blew a raspberry. ‘Life hasn’t been so kind, though, recently.’
‘I know what you mean. I could do with escaping to Loch Cameron myself.’ Graham looked out of the window at the loch outside. ‘It’s gorgeous. Even in the rain. So, your great-aunt had a cottage here, Claire said?’
‘Yeah. It was rented, like most of the places are here. The place I’m staying at is just nearby. Looks out onto the loch.’
‘I’d like to see that,’ he said. ‘It’d be nice to see the place Claire always talked about. She had such happy memories of Loch Cameron.’
‘I do, too.’ Carrie waved to Dotty as she appeared at the inn’s reception desk outside the main bar, carrying a handheld vacuum. ‘And, since I’ve been here, it’s really felt like home. I’ve made new friends. Even joined a choir.’ She laughed a little self-consciously.
‘That’s great, Carrie. I’m really happy to hear that.’ Graham tapped her hand, cautiously, as if he was petting an angry dog. ‘And I’m so glad we’re talking. I don’t expect us to be best friends, or anything. But maybe we can be in touch, chat now and again. Support each other a bit.’
‘I’d like that.’ Carrie ventured a smile. ‘Do you want to see Maud’s old cottage? You can’t go in, but you can see it from the outside, if you’d like.’ She found that she didn’t hate the idea of taking Graham up to Queen’s Point anymore.
‘I’d love that.’ Graham looked surprised and pleased. ‘Thanks, Carrie.’
‘That’s okay,’ she said, and meant it.
‘So, what will you do now?’ Graham picked at the spare beer mat next to his pint glass. ‘Like you said, you can’t stay here forever, not really working. What was it you were doing, part time?’
‘I was just working in a restaurant kitchen,’ she said, thinking of Rory, sadly. She’d given up on any notion of hearing from him now. She knew he would have to come back at some point, but he was clearly avoiding her in terms of talking about what had happened between them. ‘But that ended. I’ve never really known what I wanted to do. I temped for years.’
‘I know. Claire told me.’
‘Hmm. Well, the only thing I ever really wanted to do was be a nurse,’ Carrie said, thinking about her day in the hospital with June and Dr Dan, and her conversation with Dan at rehearsal. ‘And so I’m thinking of starting nursing training, actually.’
‘You are? That’s awesome!’ Graham’s face lit up. ‘That sounds really positive. Good for you.’
‘Yeah. It is, isn’t it?’ Carrie felt a small glow of pride light up in her belly. She hadn’t actually made her mind up until that moment, but suddenly, she knew it felt right. And, out of the blue, there was Claire’s voice in her head, echoing Graham’s words:Good for you, Carrie. All those times you bandaged me against my will, finally paying off.
Carrie smiled. She didn’t mind hearing Claire’s voice in her mind; she never had. It was a way to stay connected to her sister.
Thanks, she replied.And look at me, playing nice with Graham.
I always knew you had it in you.
Shut up. He’s all right, I suppose.
You shut up. And, I know.
Carrie smiled to herself. ‘When you’ve finished your drink, let’s walk up to the cottage,’ she said to Graham. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’
THIRTY-TWO
They met Bess at the end of the loch-side path that turned up the incline to Queen’s Point and toward Gretchen’s and Maud’s cottages. It was raining again, but there was a freshness to it as the water bounced off the loch’s glassy top that felt alive and good, somehow; like rain that made everything new. A sprinkling of boats dotted the loch here and there; a couple of teens had rowed past in a dinghy as they’d walked along, and further out the coastguard patrolled.
‘That must be her.’ Carrie gave a shy wave from under her umbrella to the short-haired woman striding towards her and Graham. She turned away from the direction of the rain slightly, grateful that the parka she’d bought from Fiona’s Fashions had a hood.
