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Twenty minutes later, Ellie closed the front door behind her and they set off. She’d packed a flask of tea and a packet of chocolate biscuits into a small rucksack and strapped it to her back. They walked through the village, past houses and cottages, shops, the library, the village hall and the school and towards the far end of the village.
The air was icy with the passing of the afternoon, and she could smell the smoke from people’s wood fires and onions frying for someone’s dinner. They passed through an archway and as they walked along the woodland path, the ground underfoot changed from concrete to hard mud scattered with dry leaves and twigs. In a nearby tree, a robin sang a pretty tune and somewhere a woodpecker’s insistent tapping kept in time with their footsteps. There was just over a week of October left and it felt like autumn had fully arrived and that winter was hovering nearby waiting to step in and bring colder climes and even some snow. Would it snow this winter, she wondered? If so, she would enjoy seeing the thick flakes falling from the sky and covering Wisteria Hollow in a sparkling white blanket. She’d head to that bookshop that had opened in the village not long ago and stock up on some recommended reading ready to hunker down through the winter months. After all, her time was her own and she could spend it however she liked.
They walked briskly, their breath emerging like puffs of smoke, and she sensed that there was something hanging in the air between them like an unbroken cobweb laden with drops of dew.
When they reached the clearing that had a picnic area and playground, she gestured at one of the benches. ‘Shall we sit down?’
‘Sure,’ Darcie said.
Ellie got the flask and biscuits out and set them on the table then put the rucksack on the bench and sat next to it. Darcie sat opposite her.
‘So, my lovely friend, do you want to tell me what’s on your mind?’ Darcie asked. ‘I feel kind of rude asking outright like this but we have known each other a long time and I know something is very wrong for you. Obviously, you don’t need to tell me, but I am here for you. Please don’t feel you can’t tell me because I swear to you that I’ll keep whatever you say in the strictest confidence.’
Ellie sighed and rubbed her eyes then wrapped her hands around her tin mug.
‘It’s quite messy and complicated but I could do with speaking about it.’
Darcie waited, steam rising from her tea in front of her, eyes filled with affection. Darcie really did care about her, Ellie realised, and so she could trust her.
‘OK… This is what happened…’ She told Darcie about what she’d found in Iris’s attic. Darcie listened quietly. There was no judgement on her face at all. When Ellie had finished, Darcie expressed surprise but also understanding for the situation Iris and Rose had been in back then. She said that as a mum she could understand how difficult it must have been for Iris giving up her baby and Ellie agreed. She could never have given up one of her children, but then she’d never been in a position where she had to make such an awful decision. Iris had, it seemed, made the decision for Ellie as much as for herself, because she’d known that her sister could give Ellie a good life with her husband. Although, Ellie thought, she would have liked to know the truth so she could decide for herself as she got older. But people made decisions throughout their lives, often with the best intentions, and sometimes those things didn’t go as they’d hoped or planned. Sometimes, there simply was no perfect choice, no perfect path to follow. When she said all this out loud to Darcie, her friend agreed.
‘I’m sorry for all that you’ve found out. It’s a terrible blow for you.’ Darcie poured them more tea from the flask. ‘But you were loved. That much was clear.’
‘I was. I had a great childhood. The moving around wasn’t always the best but then I did get to see parts of the world I’d otherwise probably not have seen. I mean, not many children stay in places like Germany, Spain and Sicily before they’re ten, do they? But despite all that, the happiest years of my childhood were when we lived in Wisteria Hollow, and I had you and Finn as friends.’
‘We did have some good times, didn’t we?’ Darcie agreed. ‘And we missed you terribly when you left.’
‘I didn’t want to go.’
‘Ellie… I have to ask. Has something happened between you and Finn? He was so upbeat when you came back to the village and seemed so excited about your date, and I know you’ve been ill but… since the day before your date when he came to help you with tidying the attic… he’s been quite low.’
Ellie’s heart lurched. ‘Has he?’
‘Between us, I haven’t seen him this low since… well, since he found out that his wife was cheating on him and had decided to leave him.’
Ellie was filled with a sense of grief so acute that she doubled over and had to hold her stomach. ‘Oh my god. That’s awful. I never wasn’t to be the reason Finn feels like that.’
‘Perhaps you two need to talk?’ There was hope in Darcie’s tone that made Ellie’s pain more intense.
‘Perhaps we do. I uhhh… I don’t want to say much about it because this is about him and me and something that transpired but… I do care about Finn, Darcie. Deeply. Perhaps too deeply.’
Darcie’s eyes searched her face and then she gave a grave nod. ‘I think you two are holding back from something that could be so good for you both. You tell me you care about him, and he tells me the same about you. Please talk to him and listen to what he has to say. He doesn’t always express himself articulately enough, I know, and like lots of men he finds it hard to speak about his feelings but I know that he has feelings for you. I know that he cares about you. If you can, hear him out and be totally honest with him about what you’re feeling. I hate seeing you both sad, especially when I have a feeling that this could be fixed and then you could both find happiness that you never expected to… perhaps in each other.’
Ellie sucked in a deep breath. So Darcie believed that there was something between Ellie and Finn and that they could find a way to fix things.
‘I guess it’s now or never,’ Ellie said. ‘And between us, I really don’t want to wait another almost thirty years to find out.’
‘That would be such a terrible waste of time,’ Darcie held up her mug. ‘Here’s to airing our dirty laundry and making the most of the time we have and the people we care about.’
‘To life and love,’ Ellie said, and they clinked their mugs together.
‘Now, let me tell you all about Cole’s boyfriend who we met when he came round for dinner the other day.’
And as Darcie filled Ellie in on the lovely boy Cole was dating and how happy they’d seemed together, Ellie felt herself relaxing. Everything would be all right in the end, she thought. The past was the past, the present was here to grab hold of, and the future was there waiting to unfold. She could make it whatever she wanted it to be.
Chapter24
Finn
