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Had Hans been there?
Of course he had. The memories were flashbacks, streams of the forgotten like lightning bolts right through my head.
The evening choir singing around Christmastime. The man under the yew tree, watching as I left the service early, bored of Mum and Grandma chatting bullshit with the locals.
The man looking up at the Hand of God carving on the outside of the chapel, standing in the darkness and looking over at me with a smile.
It was him.
I couldn’t remember his face, only his presence, but it was him. I knew it for certain.
My God. Hans had been there. In Garway. All those years ago.
“You need to go home, Katherine,” Eliza said, breaking through my thoughts. “I’ll finish the bar. Go call yourself a taxi and get to bed.”
I nodded with athank youand stumbled out to grab my phone from my bag, my fingers shaking so badly I could barely use the screen.
I dialled the taxi firm I normally used, but its lines were all busy. I tried the reserve taxi cab firm, but the operator told me they had no cabs available for at least the next hour. I called up some more from the listings. Three, four, five, all ringing out to nothing.
Fuck.
I tried the original one again, but the lines were still busy, over and over again.
The waves were still rushing through me, the spirals of memories still coming. Me in the darkness at Garway church as a little girl, the man on the sidelines always standing there.
No. It couldn’t be. This was fantasy.
Stupid girl, Katherine.
I gave up on cabs. I had to leave. Now.
I grabbed my coat and put it on, took my keys from my bag and set off on shaky legs. My phone was still in my hand, I kept dialling the cab number as I walked down the street, becoming oblivious to theline busytone that was beeping in my ear.
It was gone 3.a.m. as I walked up the street, that much I knew. Far too late for every taxi cab in London to be busy. That was reinforced by the fact that there wasn’t anyone in sight as I made my way home.
Home.
It wasn’t home though, was it? I was living in a room in a house I hardly knew, with people I’d barely spoken to. My home was in Orcop. My family had been living there for generations. I’d traced my family tree back as far as it would go, hoping for signs of more relatives to ease the constant burden of just me, my mother and grandmother, wanting my life to be more than just the three of us, when both of them clearly dismissed me as nothing.
My search had shown up generations, all tied back to that one part of the country.Georgina, wife of Thomas, agricultural worker, Orcop. Josephine, wife of Phillip, agricultural worker, Orcop. Elaine, wife of David, agricultural worker, Orcop. Lillian, wife of Matthew, agricultural worker, Orcop. Ruby, Georgina, Margaret. Jane, Deborah, Kerry-May, Mary… so many women in the chain, all of them from Orcop.
So many women in my family line I’d thought of, and wondered who they resembled most. Were they more like my mother and grandmother or more like me? I’d been needing something,anything, to believe I wasn’t the black, lonely sheep in a very scathing family.
I kept on walking, so caught up in the memories and my pounding heart and the constant taxi firm unavailable tone in my ear, that I was at the cobbled lane of Hyde Street before I realised it. I stopped in my tracks the moment I felt the first bump of stone under my feet, staring at the dull street lights lying ahead of me. Barely more than an orange glow.
There was not a soul to be seen. Just like in my dream.
The air was misty, and my breaths were raspy, and I could have taken the longer route around Brooke Avenue, but it would have added at least ten minutes to my journey. I didn’t think my shaky legs could handle it.
The final scrap ofstop being ridiculous, Katherinerose up and took hold of me, and I stepped forward onto the cobbles. As soon as I’d done so, I felt another lurch deep in the pit of me, knowing that thestop being ridiculous, Katherine, stupid girlrantings had always been nothing more than a lie. Mum and Grandma had known I wasn’t a stupid, ridiculous girl living in a fantasy world. I should never have believed them in the first place. I felt it right down in my soul.
There was more to this. So much more.
My thoughts were interrupted by a jolt.
“Lovely to see you, Katherine.”
Hans’ voice came out of nowhere, his footsteps appearing behind me. I spun to face him, dropping my keys and phone without a thought, and he kept on pacing towards me, even though I had both hands held up in panic.
