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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Copyright © Michelle Vernal 2018

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Michelle Vernal asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008226541

Ebook Edition © January 2018 ISBN: 9780008226534

Version: 2017-12-04

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

An Introduction of Sorts

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

A Final Word If I May

Acknowledgements

Also by Michelle Vernal

About the Author

About HarperImpulse

An Introduction of Sorts

I am a Matchmaker, and I’m a long way from what was once my family’s home. Us Sullivans were put on this earth to bring together two halves of a pair and make a whole. I’ve been here drifting through these brutal but beautiful Badlands for a long time now, and I’m half a world away from where my great-grandfather once roamed the equally rugged lands of West Cork.

He rode the seas before you or your parents; even your grandparents were born to the Land of the Long White Cloud, Aotearoa. He came to New Zealand on a ship with billowing sails and a cargo of Irish folk seeking a better future and a sniff of gold. Only he knew that some wouldn’t get either without his help. You see, we know something, us Sullivans, something I’ll share with you now. It’s not a fortune having been made that makes the world continue to go round – oh no, it’s love, and that’s our business.

The years have gone by, and the book we carry has been passed down with many a successful match made between its pages. You, yourself, might be a product of a Sullivan’s meddling, you just never know. It’s all there, inscribed in our book if you care to take a look.

This last wee while, I’ve been keeping my eye on a right pair; young Isla Brookes and her grandmother Bridget, the two most stubborn women I’ve ever witnessed walk the West Coast. They’ve both got it wrong along the way but it’s not too late, it’s never too late to call the Matchmaker, and when they do, I will come.

That’s enough about me and mine though; now it’s time I told you their story.

Chapter 1

Two weeks or thereabouts earlier…

Isla Brookes was a woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown. The fact she was teetering on the brink of something terrifying was not common knowledge, and she intended to keep it that way. She’d told anybody who’d asked or needed to know that in a couple of days she’d be off-grid for a few weeks. She was taking a much-needed sabbatical from her job as an Interior Design Consultant for Upscale Development, a high-end London property development company. The reason? Stress – she needed to step off the corporate ladder and take some time to heal, because the collapse of her relationship with Tim was still so very raw.

Maura and Henry, whose flat she’d fled to when she’d found the strength to finish things with Tim, or Toad as she now thought of him, had made her very welcome. However, she had no wish to become a permanent fixture on their couch. It was a couch upon which she’d spent too many afternoons pondering what she was supposed to do next. What did you do when you were told you were on the verge of a breakdown? She wondered, fingering the packet of anti-depressants she’d been prescribed, it was all new to her. She needed to remove what was causing the stress from her life – that’s what the harried NHS doctor had told her. Well, she’d done that by finishing things with Toad and taking an extended leave of absence from work. There was more to it than that though, Isla knew. Toad and her job were symptoms, neither were the full-blown illness.

If she were honest, she wasn’t sure she even wanted to be here in England anymore and, putting the pills back in her handbag, she picked up the telly remote. Dr Phil loomed large on the screen. She knew she wasn’t ready to go home to New Zealand either. What was it she’d read once? Oh yes, that was it; in times of stress or upheaval, you shouldn’t make any life-changing decisions. So, that meant she shouldn’t throw the towel in on her life in London and head off to an Ashram in India just yet. Maybe therapy was the answer then? But she didn’t want to go to some stuffy Harley Street specialist. No, she wanted something more holistic than that. And that was where Google came in. It was a marvellous thing, Google, she thought while tapping in the words holistic therapy.

As soon as Break-Free Haven Lodge popped up, Isla knew she’d found her answer. She gazed longingly at the red barn-style buildings set in rural acreage. She’d go to the States to seek help. Isla explored the website feeling more and more certain she was on the right track as she read about the various hands-on treatment programmes and counselling sessions on offer. The rustic exterior of the complex belied the calming oasis housed inside. Oh yes, she thought, her fingers tip-tapping her name into the contact form provided. This was a place where she could regain her mojo.

The British were far too ‘closed mouths’ and ‘stiff upper lips’, the Americans were much more into ‘talking about things.’ Look at the way they all managed to work their problems out on Dr Phil, she thought, glancing over to the telly where there was a lot of smiling and clapping going on. Isla knew she’d gotten to the point where she needed to talk, or she’d go under. She was lucky in so much as she’d been given a warning that something had to give. Now it was up to her to heed that warning. That didn’t mean she had to tell anyone she was going to a mental health retreat, though.

So, the word she was putting about on the street was that, to try and get some perspective back on what she was doing with her life, she was going to float like a free spirit around California for a fortnight. Yes, she knew it sounded very Eat, Pray, Love but this was her story and if it stopped people asking too many questions, then she was sticking to it.

Unfortunately, as she sat cradling the phone between her ear and her shoulder, it was a story that was not going down well with her mum, Mary. Isla had taken a deep breath knowing she could no longer put off the inevitable and had called her to tell her mum she would be incommunicado as of Friday. The conversation was going pretty much as expected.

‘I don’t like this Isla,’ Mary muttered. ‘And this connection isn’t very good. You sound odd like you’re a long way away.’

‘I’m in London Mum; you’re in Bibury. It’s the other side of the world. I am a long way away.’ It was an understatement. Her hometown of Bibury on New Zealand’s West Coast, and London, her home for the past ten years, weren’t just hemispheres apart; they were an entire universe apart.

Bibury was named for a Cotswolds village in Britain. Not just any Cotswolds village, oh no – Bibury was purported to be the loveliest of them all. Isla had heard that it boasted centuries-old stone cottages, their steeply slanting roofs giving the much-visited village its chocolate box quality. All this waxing lyrical had captured her imagination, and she’d had to go and see it for herself. It was top of her ‘places to tick off’ list while in the UK, and she’d spent a very enjoyable three-day break in the Cotswolds not long after she first arrived in London. She’d reported back to her family that yes, the British village of Bibury lived up to its good press. It was, she told them, very pretty, unlike its New Zealand counterpart which, in Isla’s opinion, would never win any beautiful town awards. Rugged and run down, yes, but beautiful? No. Isla reckoned the only thing the two places had in common was a river.

Her gran, Bridget, had harrumphed down the phone upon hearing this, wittering on that she was willing to bet gold had never been found in the River Colne as it had in the mighty Ahaura River of her birthplace. Isla had rolled her eyes. Much like she was doing now as she realized that the slow hissing down the phone line was nothing to do with a dodgy connection. It was a sound she knew well. Her mother was sighing in that hard done by, heartfelt way she always did when her daughter’s actions perturbed her.

‘Don’t get smart Isla; you know what I mean. What’s going on with you? One minute you have a high-flying job and you’re living with a man whose arse you think the sun shines out of, and the next you’re chucking the lot in to go and look for yourself in California of all places.’

‘The saying is find yourself Mum, and I’ve just taken an extended leave of absence from work, that’s all. For your information, I’m feeling really sad about being single again too. I mean you had Ryan and me by the time you were thirty, and this isn’t where I saw myself at this point in my life. I need a rest, some time to think and take stock. I want to figure out what’s next for me, but apart from that Mum, I’m fine,’ Isla lied. She knew she sounded completely self–obsessed and she hated herself for it.

Her mother snorted. ‘So you say, and you think far too much if you ask me. I’m telling you though, Isla it’s not normal being uncontactable in this day and age. How will we know where you are while you’re busy swanning around doing your floaty, find yourself bit? And, I don’t know what your gran’s going to have to say about it all.’

Isla knew exactly what her gran would have to say about it. It would go something like this: ‘What are you on about Isla? Trying to find yourself?’ There would be the same snorting noise her mother had just made (it was hereditary), followed by: ‘In my day we didn’t have time to think about anything other than how we were going to put food on the table. You young people seem to think it’s your God–given right to be happy all the time.’ Gran hated self–indulgence and so did Isla, usually. West Coasters didn’t analyse life. It wasn’t in their DNA. They were programmed to tough it out and get on with it. They were of mining stock, and it made them hard.

‘Oh Mum, don’t make me call her please! And anyway, it’s not so strange what I’m doing. Nobody even knew what a cell phone was when you were my age. Facebook was far, far away in a distant galaxy and people somehow survived without knowing what everyone was up to every single minute of the day.’

‘Yes, but that was in the dark ages when our fingers did the dialling, and we didn’t know any better. As for your gran, well I’ll let you off that one this time. I don’t want her getting all worked up about what you’re up to because I’m worried about her to be honest, Isla. She hasn’t been herself lately, not since she had that fall, but you know what she’s like. She keeps telling me she’s a box of birds for a woman of her years with a dicky hip and to stop fussing. No, I think it might be wise just to say that you need a spot of sunshine and that the cell phone reception isn’t very good where you’ve gone. I’ll tell her I’m not expecting to hear from you while you’re in America.’

‘Well you won’t so it’s not a lie, but thanks Mum. I just want a bit of peace that’s all.’ It was the wrong thing to say.

‘Oh dear God! Now you’ve got me worried Isla. You sound like you’re about to take up religion. Don’t you go joining any of those strange sects they have over there in the United States. You won’t find yourself by sitting cross-legged and making ‘mmm’ noises my girl.’

In the background, she heard her father yell out. ‘Ask her how she lost herself in the first place, Mary.’ A huge guffaw followed; he was a right card, her dad, Isla thought.

‘Mum, you had to twist my arm just to get me to go to Sunday school, remember? So I’m not about to turn my back on my worldly possessions indefinitely, sit around meditating under the stars and then having group sex, or anything like that.’

‘Isla! Watch your mouth please, remember who it is you’re talking to. Oh, and I do recall your Sunday school career because the only peace your dad and I ever got when you and Ryan were kids was on a Sunday morning. The Andersons were angels letting you join their family for church.’

The Andersons, Isla recalled were a zealous family who had lived at the end of their street. They had four kids of their own but still felt it was their duty to take two extra little lambs, Isla and Ryan, to the Lord’s house each Sunday. They’d given up on trying to bring Mary and Joe into the fold. Despite this being a normal telephone call and not Skype, Isla just knew her mum was elbowing and winking at her dad as she recalled what it was they used to get up to on their child-free Sunday mornings. She was spared from having to dwell on the sordid scene further by her mother’s next question.

‘But what about serial killers?’ Mary was a huge NCIS: Los Angeles fan who held her hand up to fancying the trousers off Chris O’Donnell.

‘I won’t talk to any strangers, Mum.’

‘Promise not to help any disabled men to their cars too. Think Ted Bundy, Isla.’

‘I promise.’

Her dad got on the phone next to ask her to buy him a Stetson hat and some cowboy boots. He had, he told her, always hankered after both. It was Isla’s turn to seek reassurance. ‘Dad promise me you’re not taking up line dancing or’ – and she shuddered at the image that flashed to mind – ‘planning on posing for a Mills and Boons cover targeting the octogenarian cowboy romance market.’ He assured her he was just wanting to fulfil his boyhood dream of looking like Clint Eastwood as he cruised around the mean streets of Bibury.

‘Not on a horse surely?’ she gasped.

‘No, in my new Ute and when I get the Harley done up, I’ll need to look the part at the Brass Monkey.’ Joe’s latest garage project was a Harley Davidson he was restoring. He lived for the day he could ride it down to the Brass Monkey Motorcycle Rally in chilly Central Otago, Mary on the back. Although, from what Isla could gather her mother wasn’t so enamoured with the idea of riding pillion. Her exact words were, ‘Blow that, I couldn’t be doing with helmet hair, and who wants to stand about all day in sub-zero temperatures drinking beer in a muddy field with a bunch of petrol heads talking about bikes?’

Isla decided she could live with her dad parading around in his Stetson and boots so long as Billy Ray Cyrus never graced his radio waves.

Two days later she sat with her head resting on the back of her aisle seat pretending to watch the air hostess do her demonstration. She was about to wing her way far, far away from the scene of her almost nervous breakdown. It gave her a profound sense of relief to know that in approximately eleven hours she would be in Los Angeles.

A few days after that, she’d be stretched out on a couch in a lovely, peaceful white room with one of those expensively yummy diffuser thing-a-me-bobs scenting the room with vanilla. No, scratch that, it would make her hungry. The smell of vanilla always conjured up images of her gran’s homemade custard squares. Vanilla was the secret ingredient. Gran was fond of secret ingredients. Lilies then. Lilies signified peace. Yes, there she’d be, talking about herself and inhaling the scent of lilies while whale’s sung softly in the background. Her therapist would be an older woman called Anne, a wise woman with a serious steel hair-do who nodded a lot and said, ‘I see.’ Wisely of course. After a fortnight’s worth of these daily couch visits, Isla would feel well-rested and clear-headed. She would have both direction and focus and be able to get on with the rest of her life.

Now, smiling to herself she re-read the brochure she’d printed off on to what to expect during her fortnight’s stay at Break-Free. She’d already read the most important bits, like what she should pack. It was comforting to know that in her carry-on bag she’d managed to squeeze two leisure suits and a ten-pack of Marks and Sparks knickers. Gran always reckoned you couldn’t go wrong in life if you had a clean pair of knickers with you at all times.

Chapter 2

Around about now…

The town was dying, Bridget Collins thought as she rubbed the condensation from her front room window with a tea towel and peered outside to the stretch of road that was Bibury’s High Street. The heavens had opened last night and despite it being February she’d had to get the fire going, hence this morning’s unseasonal condensation. People said it was global warming, but she knew better, most Coasters did. It wasn’t a new thing, this unpredictable weather; she’d known it to snow in February more than once. Still, at least the sun was trying to make a reappearance today.

Bridget had lived here her entire life and had seen the town through its boom times when the mines’ money had flowed, and the town was prosperous. She smiled recalling how she used to mince off to her first job in the offices of the Farmer’s building each morning, full of the joy of being young and pretty. What a pity one didn’t understand then that youth was fleeting and try to bottle some of that wonderful joie de vivre to bring out and sniff now and again in one’s golden years. That wasn’t the way life worked though, and this only became clear when time had faded every year, stretching them long and thin until they become worn and tired. A bit like knicker elastic, she thought.

The store where she’d once worked had long since departed, just like the money from the mines. These days the Four Square Supermarket operated out of the old Farmer’s building, and if you wanted a decent pair of pantyhose, a person had to go all the way into Greymouth. Today, the High Street was deserted apart from the campervan parked outside the Kea Tearooms. Mind you, Noeline had told her just the other day that most of the tourists only bought a pot of tea between them so they could use the loo.

‘Bloody cheek,’ she’d muttered in strident tones, her ample bosom puffing out in indignation.

Bridget had been assailed with a waft of Noeline’s perfume. She was heavy-handed with it, whatever it was. It was a shame she wasn’t so heavy-handed when it came to the amount of filling she put in her mince pies.

‘None of them want an egg and ham sarnie on white bread anymore. Oh no, it’s all bagels with smoked salmon and cream cheese or goat’s cheese tarts. And don’t get me started on the Gluten Free Brigade. I don’t mind telling you Bridget; I’m about ready to hang up my apron.’

Bridget had been tempted to say that with Noeline’s niece, or whatever a second cousin’s daughter was called, installed in the café these days it had been awhile since she’d seen her don an apron and do any work. Annie was the girl’s name, and she’d arrived on the scene with the foreign fellow who’d taken the teaching post at the High School for the start of the new school year. She was determined to introduce some new ‘modern’ ideas to the tearoom. Thus far, Noeline was holding firm.

Bridget sympathized; she couldn’t be doing with all that fandangled food the cafés served in Christchurch and Greymouth for that matter either. As far as she was concerned those pumpkin seed thing-a-me-bobs that were sprinkled on the top of everything these days were for the birds and cream cheese gave her indigestion. She was with Noeline when it came to a good old ham and egg sarnie, although she was partial to cheese and onion herself. Cheese made from cow’s milk, thank you very much. And as for all these new so-called food intolerances, well … she shook her head. In her day if you had a square meal put in front of you once a day then you were grateful.

Bridget looked out at the lifeless street and sighed; the town had been like a tyre with a slow puncture in the years since the Barker’s Ridge mine had closed down. On one side of the tearoom across the street was Bibury Arts & Crafts, where local people could display and sell their wares. In competition with Noeline on the other side of her business, but with enough breathing space between the two thanks to a grassy Council owned strip of land, was everybody’s favourite Friday night takeaway, the fish & chippy. The Cutting Room hair salon was next to that.

The corner block was taken up by the Four Square’s brick building and gave the town’s kids the opportunity of an after school job. It was where Isla had worked as a teenager. Bridget could still see her in her blue zip-up smock sitting behind the till when she closed her eyes. Oh, how she’d moaned about wearing that uniform. It was ugly, she’d cried. Her granddaughter was nothing if not determined though and Bridget had nearly dropped her eggs in the aisle spying her one Saturday afternoon in a blue zip up mini. Isla had taken it upon herself to fold the hem up several inches before loosely stitching it. The memory made her smile as her gaze travelled on towards the butcher’s. It was owned by the Stewart brothers and competed with the supermarket for business. A narrow side street separated it from Mitchell’s Pharmacy.

The Valentine’s Day window display in the pharmacy urged the romantics of Bibury to pop on in and treat their sweetheart to something special. It was where Bridget’s daughter Mary worked as a Revlon Consultant, and the pharmacy’s only floor staff. Next to Mitchell’s was the two-pump Shell garage. The Robson family had owned it under one conglomerate’s umbrella or another for as long as Bridget could remember. From her front room vantage point, she could see Ben Robson’s broad, overall-clad back bent over the engine of a Ute. She’d been at school with his grandfather. Poor old Raymond had gone a bit dotty in the last few years and was now in permanent residence at a care facility over in Greymouth. The garage’s tow truck that Ben took out now and again was parked off to the side of the forecourt with a beaten up looking farm truck still hooked to its boom.

Ben had recently taken over the family business and his parents, Bridget knew, had swanned off last Friday on a month-long cruise to celebrate their newfound freedom. ‘Not everybody’s on struggle street in Bibury then,’ she’d said, pursing her lips when her friend Margaret had relayed the news.

Ben had been at school with her grandson Ryan. They were great mates, the two of them, and still kept in touch. He was a lovely lad, and she’d been pleased when Isla had begun to step out with him. She’d glowed with her first love and in her, Bridget had seen herself as a young girl once more. She’d never understood why Isla had given him the heave-ho the way she had. He’d moped around the town for months after she moved to Christchurch. He’d kept asking her and Mary when Isla was coming home for a weekend, but the times she had, she’d kept him dangling by keeping her distance. The pair of them had been so smitten with each other too, or that was the way it had seemed from the outside looking in. Then out of the blue Isla had broken things off with Ben by saying their long-distance relationship wasn’t working.

There was more to it, Bridget was sure, and she’d been hurt when Isla hadn’t confided in her. She’d always had a special relationship with her granddaughter. Right from when she was a little girl who’d pop in on her way home from school for one of her gran’s freshly baked scones or, if it was a special occasion, Isla’s favourite, a custard square. Bridget could still see the pigtailed girl she’d been, perched up at the kitchen table earnestly telling her about her day.

Bridget understood her granddaughter’s need to broaden her mind, and she knew it was all the fashion to put your career first and stay single well into your thirties these days. Women should have a career if that was what they wanted. Of course they should, and nobody could say Isla hadn’t done that. The thing that seemed to have been forgotten along the way though was that being a wife and mother was a worthwhile career too.

When had staying home to raise your children become a foreign concept? You didn’t need a flat screen television and a new car for heaven’s sake! But your children needed you, and they grew up so very fast. Bridget had to listen to Margaret prattle on about how the grandchildren were coming to stay for the holidays. ‘Melanie works you know,’ she’d state self-righteously. ‘She has to with the cost of living these days.’ Bridget would bite back the retort, ‘and did she have to have a ridiculously big house in a posh suburb too?’

Times had changed and not for the better in her opinion. People didn’t want to save for anything anymore or make do until they could afford to buy it. She remembered how she and Tom had eaten mince for a month back in the day, to buy their lounge suite. They’d bought it in Greymouth and had kept the plastic wrapping on the cushions for weeks after they got it home for fear of Mary or Jack putting their dirty feet on it.

She watched now as Ben straightened, missing smacking his head on the Ute’s bonnet with the practised manoeuvring of a seasoned mechanic. He disappeared from her line of sight into the garage’s workshop. She’d heard that he was seeing the pretty blonde girl who had taken over from Violet McDougall as the school’s new secretary. From what her hairdresser, Marie, had been saying as she snipped at Bridget’s hair last week at The Cutting Room, things were getting serious between them too.

Isla had made a mistake in breaking things off with Ben in Bridget’s opinion. Yes, she knew it was all over years ago, but her granddaughter had not met anyone else worthwhile in the ensuing years. Certainly not the unmanly Tim she’d been shacked up with over in London – Mary had told her he used moisturiser for heaven’s sake and that he had gotten very excited when he’d thought she might be able to ship him Revlon products over at cost. She’d seen the light, thank goodness, and called that relationship a day. But while Ben’s life was moving forward, it seemed to Bridget that Isla’s was floundering once more. It was all well and good having a high-powered job, but it would not keep a woman warm at night.

Bridget became aware that the postman was at the letterbox waving at her. He must think her a right old Nosy Nelly, she thought, giving him a nod of acknowledgement. She let the net curtain fall back into place but not before she saw him slotting an envelope into the box.

Her heart began to thud alarmingly as she left the front room and moved to the hallway with its long reaching shadows. She stood there twiddling her thumbs and telling herself to calm down. If she hadn’t known that this sudden agitation was down to the possible contents of her letterbox, she might have taken herself off to the Medical Centre. A visit there was enough to induce a cardiac arrest in itself. It was another anomaly about getting older that a person was expected to discuss one’s intimate body ailments with a chap who looked as if he had only just waved goodbye to puberty. She waited for a few beats longer to ensure the postman would have cycled further on up the street before stepping outside her front door. She wasn’t in the mood to exchange banal pleasantries.

‘No, I’m not interested in selling.’ she muttered upon opening her letterbox and being greeted with a real estate flyer. ‘And if I were I wouldn’t employ you.’ She pushed the flyer aside – the agent looked like Donald Trump for goodness’ sake – and retrieved the plain white envelope with its Australian postmark tucked beneath it. She was about to disappear back inside the house when she heard a familiar voice. It made her jump, and she hoped she didn’t look as furtive as she felt.

‘Morning Mum. I was going to get some morning tea and then pop in on you. It’s nice to see the sun again after last night, isn’t it?’

Bridget waved across the road to Mary. Good grief, that orange face of hers was like a beacon sitting atop her white pharmacy smock. If she were to stand still by the roadside vehicles would slow and come to a stop thinking they’d reached a pedestrian crossing. When Bridget had asked her why it was she was getting about looking like an Oompa-Loompa lately, her daughter had shot her a withering look and told her it was down to the latest innovation in facial bronzing. ‘It gives my face a healthy, sun–kissed glow Mum, without inflicting the damaging rays of the sun on my skin. Sun damage causes premature ageing as well as skin cancer you know.’ Mary had her sales pitch down pat.

Bridget had snorted but bit back the retort hovering on the tip of her tongue. She’d given up arguing with her daughter years ago. Mary was a grown woman in her fifties and if she wanted to look like Mr Wonka’s helper so be it. Still, it was annoying how the tune kept getting stuck in her head – Oompa-Loompa doom-p-dee-do – whenever she saw her.

She was one of a kind, Mary, definitely not a chip off the old block. There’s a saying; the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Well, it certainly had with Mary, Bridget often thought. Her daughter had never been much of a cook, despite her best efforts to teach her. She’d given up in the end and resorted to buying her a copy of the trusty Edmonds Cookery Book when she got married. Mary, she knew, wielded it with almost biblical fervour. It had become Ryan’s and Isla’s inside joke growing up, to try and guess the page number for the evening’s meal, some of which they knew by heart so often had their mother made them. Still, Mary was a good mum and a good daughter, and Joe by all accounts was pleased with his choice of bride given his penchant for grabbing her bottom whenever the opportunity presented itself. Even if she was orange.

‘Yes, it’s going to be a lovely day, and you can see I’m fine Mary, you don’t need to pop in. Besides I’m off to bowls shortly. Any word from Isla?’ Bridget called back across the street.

‘No, but I’m not expecting to hear from her while she’s in California, she said the cell phone coverage isn’t very good.’

‘Ah right.’ Bridget mentally shooed her daughter on her way, feeling as though the envelope she was holding was a hot potato.

‘The warm weather will do her good, Mum,’ Mary said giving her a final wave before opening the door of the Kea. Bridget watched her go inside the café before turning and making her way back up to the house. A needle-like pain in her hip made her wince as she ascended the steps to the front porch. ‘Sodding arthritis,’ she said to no one in particular before closing the door behind her.

It was last night’s rain and the ensuing damp air it had left in its wake that had set it off again. The tumble she’d taken a few weeks back hadn’t helped matters either. Mary had begun making noises about Bridget selling up and coming to live with her and Joe ever since. She’d offered to turn Joe’s workshop into a granny flat for her. Tripping over the lip on the backdoor step wouldn’t have been a big deal had she not found herself unable to get up. At the time she thought she might have broken her hip but had found out later it was just badly bruised along with her pride. She’d felt, lying in a heap on the kitchen floor, old. Properly old for the first time and she didn’t like it. Nor did she much like the idea of moving in with Mary and Joe. She was fairly certain Joe didn’t think it was a bright idea either. She wouldn’t want to put him in the position of choosing between his beloved Harley Davidson motorcycle and his mother-in-law.

Her son, Jack who was high up in mining and had a flashy house over in Greymouth had made noises too, about her coming to live with him and that wife of his, Ruth. He was just paying lip service to the idea though. Bridget knew she wouldn’t last five minutes under the same roof as Ruth, who was far too bossy for her boots and insufferable when it came to singing the praises of their children, Thomas and Theresa. No, while there was breath in her body she was staying put thank you very much. She hadn’t spent the last fifty-five years creating memories in her home only to leave it when the going got a little tough.

Oh, they weren’t all happy memories, but then that was the stuff of life. She’d learned to compartmentalize and shut herself off from what she didn’t want to know, mainly thanks to Tom’s philandering a long time ago. She wasn’t called Bridget for nothing she thought, heading towards the sound of the radio emanating from her kitchen. Her mother used to tell her not to cry when she’d run in howling with a grazed knee or some such grievous injury. ‘Don’t you know Bridget means power and strength in Irish?’ she’d say.

Bridget would’ve liked to have gone to Ireland. She’d always thought she and Tom might visit one day, but then he’d gotten sick, and the thought of going on her own after he passed away had been a daunting one. Her mind had been in turmoil for such a long time after his death. All she’d thought she’d known had been proven a lie in the hours before he’d passed and she’d clung white-knuckled, to the familiar. Sometimes she was secretly glad she’d never made the long trip to the other side of the world. That way she couldn’t be disappointed if the colourful picture her mother had painted of the country in which her grandmother had grown up didn’t quite live up to her expectations.

Besides, as she thought of the weatherboard sitting on its quarter acre section that she and Tom had purchased when they were married, she couldn’t imagine leaving the old girl for any great chunk of time. It would be like leaving a sinking ship. It would be like leaving Bibury for that matter, and that was incomprehensible because it was all she’d ever known. Bridget flicked the switch on the kettle and set about making herself a brew. Only when it was strong enough to stand a spoon up in did she feel ready to sit down and open the envelope.

Chapter 3

Bridget’s hands trembled as she stared at the Valentine’s Day card in her hand. A white love heart on a red background inside which the words, For Someone Special, were inscribed. It was two days early, and she didn’t need to open it to know who it was from. Nevertheless, she did.

Her fingers traced his handwriting, and she closed her eyes to see if she could conjure up a picture of what Charlie must look like now. It was the sixth Valentine’s Day card she’d received from him. He’d heard through the miners’ long reaching grapevine that Tom had passed away and had waited a full year after his death before sending her the first card. What a shock that had been! Sixty years had fallen away as she’d opened the card and read his condolences. The verse he’d chosen brought tears to her eyes but it was his request to come and visit her that had made her legs turn to jelly and her stomach begin to churn. She hadn’t replied to that card or the ones that had followed annually since. How could she? Not when there was so much water under the bridge. She couldn’t revisit the past with him; it was simply too painful.

Bridget donned her glasses and read the verse in this year’s card out loud.

‘There is a special place within my heart

That only you can fill

For you had my love right from the start

And you always will.’

He’d written beneath this that he would dearly love to visit her and that all she had to do was call and tell him yes and he’d book a flight. Bridget felt the familiar roiling in her stomach at this request. ‘Oh Charlie, how did I get it so wrong?’ she asked the empty kitchen. The phone began to ring making her jump at the sudden intrusion, and she swore softly as she got up from where she was sitting. A split-second later, Bridget winced for the second time that morning upon hearing Margaret’s not so dulcet tones informing her she’d collect her in five minutes. ‘Good-oh,’ she said hanging up and retrieving her cup from the table. She tipped the dregs down the sink before picking the card up once more. She would tuck it away in the top drawer of her dresser where she put all of her life’s flotsam and jetsam, and try to forget about it.

It was a victorious Bridget who was dropped home from bowls by a po-faced Margaret. She didn’t even toot as she reversed back down the driveway in her cobalt blue Suzuki Swift. She’d always been a sore loser, Bridget thought, giving her a cheery wave before letting herself in the front door. She’d better rattle her dags and get the dinner on because Joe would be calling in soon on his way home from the wood-processing plant where he worked in Greymouth, hoping to be fed.

The packet of beef sausages were where she’d left them defrosting on the bench in the kitchen. Back in the days when Max had still prowled the premises, she wouldn’t have dared leave meat out on the bench; she’d have come home to find the greedy old tomcat had mauled their dinner.

Joe enjoyed bangers and mash; he was a good man her son-in-law and Bridget liked a man who enjoyed his food. What was that phrase? Salt of the earth. She always thought it suited Joe down to the ground. He came to have his tea with her on a Thursday night when Mary swanned off to her dance in the dark session at Barker’s Creek Hall. He’d tuck into the meal she’d put down in front of him with relish, reckoning it was slim pickings on the home front with Mary not wanting a full stomach for all that dancing.

Bridget shook her head, as she unhooked her apron from the back of the kitchen door and slipped it over her head before tying it around her waist. A brief search for the vegetable peeler ensued and after locating it in the compost bucket along with last night’s carrot peel, she set about scraping the spuds. She didn’t know what a woman past her prime was doing jiggling about in the dark with a group of other women who should know better! What was wrong with a brisk morning stroll?

Bridget had been doing the same circuit each morning for years unless it was wet or the frost was particularly hard. Off she’d march, what was the point in dawdling? Down the High Street and passing by Banbridge Park, she’d always be sure to pause by the Cenotaph. It was her way of showing respect for the young men listed on the monument. The Great War was before her time, and she’d been too young to feel the effects of the Second World War. She’d known heartbreak in her time though. Her gaze would drift past the stone edifice and over the tops of the swings to the back of the park as she remembered stolen kisses under the Punga trees.

She’d continue on her way, the Coalminer’s Tavern looming on her left. It always made her grimace when people referred to the old pub as the Pit even if it had seen better days. Then she’d get to School Road. It was the road on which she’d grown up, and it pleased her to see a swing and slide set in the front garden of what had been her family home. The house, long since sold, was rented to a family, which was nice even if they didn’t keep it to the standard her parents once had. Her eyes would inevitably flit to the upstairs window above the thorny rose bushes that needed a jolly good prune, and she’d feel a pang for the girl who’d once occupied that room.

So many hopes and dreams but life hadn’t turned out how she thought it would. She’d stand there on the pavement of her youth lost in her thoughts knowing the woman with the unruly tribe of under-fives who lived in the house these days probably thought she was potty. She’d caught her peeping through the Venetian blind slats once, and had tried to imagine how she must look to her but had found she didn’t care. She’d stopped caring what people thought of her a long time ago and as the wind began to blow and the leaves to swirl, her mind would return to the night she’d met Charlie. She was once more that young girl twirling with joy.

1957

Bridget spun around and around, her arms flung wide. She was young and free, and in half an hour she would be off to dance the night away at Barker’s Creek Hall. The evening that stretched ahead was full of new possibilities and lots and lots of fun. She enjoyed the way the powder blue, poodle skirt she’d sewn for herself, under her mum’s helpful guidance, swung out high around her thighs. She’d spent the morning dipping her petticoat in sugar water, before ironing it over a low heat to give her skirt the fullness that was all the rage. Her mother had thought she was mad! Bridget was surprised, after all she should be used to such carry on from her older sister, Jean.

She had teamed her skirt with a crisp white blouse that suited her dark colouring, a blue scarf knotted jauntily around her neck to tie her outfit together, and on her feet, she had a pair of white kitten heels borrowed from Jean. They made her feel ever so grown up. They’d come at a cost, mind; she’d had to loan her sister her brand new Bill Haley and His Comets record to take around to her friend Edith’s house, before she’d even had the chance to listen to it herself.

She did have her new stole, though. She’d saved hard to buy it from the shillings her mother handed back from the wage packet she brought home once a week. She had worked since leaving school six months ago, as a secretary in the administration area of the Farmer’s Department Store on the High Street, and as such was entitled to a small instore discount. She’d put this to good use with the purchase of her first lipstick. It was tucked away inside her purse ready to be applied when she was a safe distance away from the house and her father’s eagle eye.

Speaking of whom, he rattled his papers just then and her mother poked her head around the kitchen door. ‘Bridget, don’t you be throwing yourself about like that on the dancefloor tonight young lady; I saw your knickers then.’ She tried to look fierce, but her mouth was twitching. Dad looked over the top of his paper, a plume of pipe smoke rising above him and filling the room with its distinctive aroma. He shot her a disapproving look before raising his paper once more. Bridget decided it would be wise to take herself off before he changed his mind about letting her go.

It had been touch and go as to whether his youngest daughter would be allowed to attend the Valentine’s Day Dance at Barker’s Creek Hall. He was convinced young people were being led astray by that music they were all going silly for. ‘Rock’n’Roll has a lot to answer for.’ He’d been heard to mutter more than once. He’d only agreed to Bridget going to the dance tonight because their parish church was organizing it as a fundraiser and Jean had said, under duress, that she would keep an eye on her. Jean could twist their father around her little finger; she could do no wrong in his eyes with her nice young man who had good prospects in the office at the mine where both men worked.

Mum, Bridget knew, was putting a dollop of jam and cream on to each of the pikelets she’d made for the girls to take to the dance as an offering for supper to be held later in the evening. She didn’t want to run the risk of marking her blouse or skirt by helping, but she would go and keep her company while she waited. So picking up her stole from where she’d draped it theatrically across the back of the settee, she pulled it around her shoulders and went through to the kitchen and sat down at the table, safely out of her father’s line of sight.

Jean’s boyfriend Colin was calling for them both shortly, but Jean was still upstairs in the bathroom fiddling about with her hair. Normally Jean would sit on the handlebars of his bike risking life and limb on the gravel roads, but Colin had managed to borrow his dad’s car. Jean had only consented to take her sister and friend because Bridget had threatened to tell their parents that she had seen her parked up with Colin last week when she’d told them she was going to the pictures at the Town Hall with him.

Mum chattered on about what the dances had been like in her day when ‘swing’ had been all the rage and Glen Miller the star of the day. She was about to demonstrate her jitterbug moves, jammy spoon still in hand, when they heard a toot, followed a moment later by a knock at the front door. Bridget looked on with amusement as her father folded the paper, leaving his pipe to smoulder in the ashtray as he got up from his seat to open the front door. She knew he would shake Colin’s hand with a vigour that left no doubt that he had high hopes his eldest daughter would have a ring on her finger by the year’s end.

Jean came skipping down the stairs in a cloud of Arpege perfume, an expensive gift from Colin for her birthday, and Bridget, carefully holding the supper plate her mum had placed in her hands, followed her out the front door. She barely heard the instructions her mother was reeling off for how she should conduct herself with decorum or her father’s watch-tapping instructions for curfew, as she settled herself into the back seat of the Holden FJ, arranging her skirt just so. She did not want it crushed by the time she got to the hall! Colin, she knew would have to hose the car down in the morning because it would be covered in dust by the time they navigated the shingle road leading to Barker’s Creek Hall.

They picked Bridget’s best friend Clara up on the way, and the two girls sat giggling in the back as they bounced along, their conversation full of excited chatter over who they thought would be there tonight and who they’d like to dance with and who they most definitely would not! Their hands nervously smoothed the folds of fabric in their skirts in anticipation. Jean shot them both the odd, ‘oh grow up’ look over her shoulder before rolling her eyes and saying, ‘Kids,’ to Colin. He’d reached over and patted her knee with a smile. Bridget suspected it was just an excuse for him to touch her sister’s knee.

Present day

A toot and a wave from someone she knew driving past would invariably drag her back from her remembrances. ‘You’re a nostalgic old fool, Bridget,’ she’d tell herself before carrying on down the road and coming to the local school. Mary and Jack, then Isla and Ryan had all gone to Bibury Area School. She’d gone there too but in her day, there’d been a wooden schoolhouse plonked in the middle of what was now the sports field. It was long gone, cleared away to make room for the new like so many other pockets of Bibury’s past.

The pavement forked a short way past the school, and she had the choice of following the path by the Ahaura River or the roadside footpath. She always walked down by the river remembering how she’d sat on the banks, hidden from view as she kissed Charlie. The memories of those kisses would fade as the path forked once more and she found herself almost reluctantly following the footpath that looped around back to High Street. She’d inevitably also find herself wishing that she’d been brave enough to choose a different path back when it had mattered.

It was a walk filled with memories and ghosts, but Bridget was sure it was the only thing that kept her hip from seizing up completely, and it gave her the edge she needed to beat Margaret at bowls.

The potatoes were bubbling in the pot, and her eyes were beginning to smart as she chopped the onion. She didn’t know if it was the onion that was making her want to cry or the memories evoked from the card she’d received that morning. She blinked them away upon hearing the front door bang shut.

‘You can’t beat the smell of frying onions,’ Joe called out from the hall, and she smiled. He said the same thing every Thursday, bless him.

They’d settled into an agreeable routine of a Thursday evening with Joe always washing the dishes after they’d eaten. He’d moan and groan about how full he was while Bridget dried and put away.

‘Pudding, Joe?’ she’d ask when the last of the dishes were cleared.

‘Ooh, I don’t know if I can.’

‘Are you sure? I’m having some.’

‘Ah go on then, I might be able to make a bit of room.’

Tonight, she’d found a bag of stewed black boy peaches from Margaret’s tree in the freezer, and so she’d whipped up a crumble. Having dished two bowls up with a dollop of ice-cream, they went through to the living room to eat off their laps while they watched Seven Sharp. Mary had harrumphed upon hearing of this arrangement.

‘You always made me and Jack sit up at the table, Mum.’

‘Seven Sharp wasn’t on when you and Jack lived at home, Mary,’ Bridget replied. She didn’t like to miss an episode. It was the show’s host Mike Hosking she was fond of, having listened and argued with him for years on talkback radio. It was like letting an old friend into her living room each evening.

Joe, however, was on the fence. ‘He wouldn’t last five minutes in a real job,’ he’d say. ‘Look at all that crap he puts in his hair.’

Bridget would tell him to pipe down and eat his pudding.

Joe would head home at half past seven when the current affairs programme had finished. He would get home just as Mary was heading off to her dance class. They were ships passing in the night which suited him fine once a week. ‘It means I can work on the bike in peace without Mary going on about how I spend more time with it than I do her.’ He’d kiss Bridget on the cheek and thank her for looking after him before revving the engine of his ridiculously oversized motorized beast, and heading home in a cloud of exhaust fumes. Bridget would close the door thinking her daughter was right, she had married a petrol head but a petrol head with a heart of gold.

This evening however before the credits rolled on Seven Sharp, Joe and Bridget looked at each other startled as they heard the front door open and Mary call out.

‘Is everything alright?’ Bridget looked at her daughter seeking reassurance as she barrelled into the living room.

‘Everything’s fantastic, Mum. Guess what?’

‘What?’ Joe and Bridget chimed.

‘Isla arrives home in two days. Isn’t that just the best Valentine’s Day present ever?’

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