Now and Then Friends (15 page)

“Or longer,” Emily said on a sigh. “Tom's been talking about having another.”

“Easy for him, isn't it?” Rachel had met Emily's husband on a few occasions, a cheerful, blunt-faced man who left his dirty socks in the hall.

“We always wanted a big family,” Emily said, but she didn't sound convinced.

“Things change, though. Do you still want a big family? The twins aren't even two yet.”

“I know. I know.” Emily put her mug down, her soft blond hair falling in front of her face. “Sometimes I don't know what I want anymore.”

Rachel could sense a big heart-to-heart coming on and discreetly she checked her watch. Not that she didn't like Emily, but she had another house to clean this afternoon, and by the looks of it Emily hadn't done any cleaning all week. Besides, she didn't know how much emotional energy she had left. Lily, Meghan, and Claire had taken it all up.

Emily continued to gaze down at her mug, and so with a mixture of sympathy and exasperation, Rachel asked the inevitable question. “Why do you think you don't know what you want anymore?”

“Because I have it all, don't I?” Emily looked up, a wry smile trembling on her lips. She looked like she was caught between self-deprecation and total tears. “I mean, look at this.” She waved an arm towards the kitchen with its granite counters and top-of-the-line appliances, the dirty dishes littering most surfaces, crusts cut off from the twins' sandwiches in a jammy pile by the sink. “Everyone wants what I have, don't they?”

“Not everyone,” Rachel allowed. “I'm quite sure there is a significant part of the population that could do without taking care of nearly two-year-old twins, lovely though they are.”

“True,” Emily agreed, and with relief Rachel noticed that the threat of tears seemed to have passed. “But the big picture. The house, the husband, the kids. I have it all.”

“And?” Rachel asked after a moment. The needlelike prick of envy she felt was surpassed by a deeper curiosity.

“I keep thinking, ‘Is this all there is?' Seriously?”

Rachel took a sip of tea, considering her response. “What more do you want?” she asked.

“That's the stupid thing. I don't know. I honestly don't know what I want, what could make me happy. I know I just want . . . more.” She shook her head and gave her a guilty smile. “You must want to slap me.”

“Why would I want to slap you?” Rachel asked, and Emily flushed and looked away.

“I only meant that I must seem ungrateful, compared to, well . . .”

“Ah.” So she must want to slap Emily Hart because she was moaning about her perfect life while it was glaringly obvious that Rachel's life sucked. “I don't want to slap you, Emily,” she said. She wanted to slap herself, for being so obvious about her jealousy and dissatisfaction. And
then
maybe she'd want to slap Emily. Although Emily was so tired and overwhelmed that Rachel couldn't really feel anything but sympathy for her. She was definitely not jealous of her having toddler twins.

“Do you ever think like that?” Emily asked after a moment.

“Is this all there is?” Rachel leaned back in her seat. “I suppose everyone thinks that once in a while.” Although actually she didn't think she had, mostly because she knew the answer.
Yes, it bloody well is.
“I've been too busy with everything to stop and ponder about the meaning of life,” she said with what she hoped passed for a rueful laugh.

“But do you hope for more?” Emily pressed. “I mean, I don't know, a different job or a new relationship, something to give your life more excitement,
anything
 . . .” Rachel couldn't tell what the expression on her face was, but it must have gone strange, because Emily let out an embarrassed laugh and shook her head. “Sorry. Sorry. I'm rabbiting on. Don't mind me, Rachel, honestly. I'm seriously sleep-deprived.” She finished her tea, leaving the mug on the table. “Do you mind stripping the beds today? I didn't get around to it this week.”

You never do,
Rachel thought as she murmured her assent, and then took both mugs to the sink.

Rachel might have dismissed Emily's question to her face, but it rattled around in her mind as she went about her jobs for the next few days, hoovering, scrubbing tiles and toilets, stacking dishes and folding clothes. Picking unknown hairs out of a stranger's shower drain and dusting photographs of weddings and baptisms and parties of people she didn't know but thought looked deliriously happy had a way of making her think about her own life.

Was this all there was?

She knew the answer to that question, which was why she'd never struggled with it the way Emily Hart had. But now she let herself consider how Lily would be going to university in a few months. Would that be her chance to have some freedom? But no. There was still Meghan and Nathan and her mother. Janice Campbell might be an invalid, but Rachel suspected she would need more and more care over the next several decades.

And don't you want her to?

She was shocked by her selfishness, the fact that she was practically begrudging her mother her life. What was
wrong
with her? So many people had it far worse than she did. She had a job that paid most of the bills and that she liked at least some of the time. She had a family she loved, even if they drove her crazy on occasion. She had friends, a small social life, her health. She was fine. It was only because Claire West had breezed back into Hartley-by-the-Sea that she was feeling so unsettled.

Friday evening she trudged up the path to her house, bracing herself for the din of noise she knew would greet her upon her arrival. Lily's music. Her mother's groans. Nathan's wailing. And Meghan probably on her way out somewhere; out of the last five nights she'd been gone three, coming home smelling of beer and smoke and men's cologne.

Deep breath, and she opened the door and was greeted with . . . silence.

Carefully Rachel shut the door behind her. She poked her head in her mother's bedroom and saw she was dozing. The kitchen was empty and fairly clean, and then Rachel went into the sitting room and came up short. Lily was sitting on the sofa, talking to Andrew West.

“What . . . ?” She trailed off and simply stared at him, looking completely at ease on the overstuffed sofa with the shiny worn patches on the armrests. He wore a pair of chinos with knife-edge creases and a blue shirt that was open at the throat. The most boring clothes imaginable. As Andrew caught sight of her, he raised his eyebrows.

“What am I doing here?” he finished. “Saying hello.”

“I thought you were in Manchester.”

“I was. I've come back for the weekend.” The words hovered there for a moment. He'd come back to check on Claire.

“Well, you don't need to check on me,” Rachel said. “I'm fine.”

“I know you are,” he said with a small smile. “I've actually come to extend an invitation.”

“An invitation . . . ?”

“Claire and I are going to go hiking this weekend, maybe try to conquer Scafell Pike. We thought you, and any of your family”—he glanced at Lily—“might like to join us.”

Rachel gaped at him. Literally gaped, mouth hanging open, eyes bulging, speechless. “I . . .” she finally said, uselessly, and Lily jumped in.

“I'd love to go,” she said. “And so would Rachel.”

Claire wasn't an outdoorsy person. Growing up she'd been deemed too fragile for sports because of her health, and in any case, her parents weren't exactly the fell-walking type. Andrew was, though; he'd run track at Wyndham, and when he'd gone to uni, he'd always come back and hiked through his holidays. He'd had a goal of conquering all two-hundred-odd peaks in the whole of Cumbria. Claire didn't know how many he'd actually managed.

Apparently he was going to attempt one today, along with her, Rachel, and Rachel's sister Lily. It felt like an odd assortment of people packed into Andrew's usually roomy Lexus. Claire watched Rachel covertly, noticing the way she'd stroked the leather of the seats before jerking her hand back and then folding both arms and staring straight ahead. She hadn't said much, and Claire couldn't tell if she was still angry or not.

Why did you dump me in Year Six?

The question had been so unexpected, and it still made Claire inwardly squirm with a mixture of guilt and confusion. She hadn't remembered it exactly like that. Back when she was eleven, it had felt like Rachel had been turning her back on her. Admittedly she'd gone with the Wyndham girls, but she'd been waiting for Rachel to elbow her way in and join them. She never had.

Lily was seemingly oblivious to the tension that Claire could feel from Rachel and even Andrew, although he looked relaxed enough, driving the alarmingly narrow road by Ennerdale with ease. Claire flinched every time they passed a car; the side mirrors nearly brushed each other.

“I've never actually climbed a fell,” Rachel announced from the backseat. She had insisted on sitting in the back with Lily although Claire had offered her the front seat.

“And you a born-and-bred Cumbrian?” Andrew said, arching an eyebrow, a small smile playing about his lips. For a second Claire wondered if her brother was actually flirting. With
Rachel.

“You are too,” Rachel pointed out. “Even if you don't act like it.”

“Yet I've climbed one hundred and ninety-two fells.”

“Andrew wasn't actually born in Cumbria,” Claire chipped in. “He was born in Leeds. I'm the only one in the family who was born in Cumbria.”

“Have you ever climbed a fell?” Rachel asked.

“No, I never have.”

“So what are we all doing out here, then?”

“Having fun,” Lily said, and lightly punched her sister's arm. “It's an absolutely glorious day.”

Claire gazed out the window at Ennerdale in the valley below them, the water a brilliant blue in the sunlight, the fells, some still snowcapped, providing a backdrop so stunning it looked like a set piece from a play. It was so different from London or Portugal, and she had to remind herself that she'd actually lived here for most of her life. “It reminds me of the backdrop in
The Sound of Music
, when they do that song about the goats,” she said, and Andrew let out a laugh.

“You're comparing all of that out there to a painted bit of cardboard in a film?”

“Well, sort of . . .” she began, and Rachel caught her eye. “Yodel-lay-he-hoo,” she sang off-key, and they shared a surprising, complicit smile before Rachel glanced back at Andrew.

“So we're not actually climbing Scafell Pike, are we?” Rachel asked.

“Why shouldn't we?”

“Because I'm wearing trainers and it's about five thousand feet high.”

“Three thousand and sixty-eight, actually.”

“I stand corrected.”

Andrew shrugged, his gaze on the narrow, winding road. “If we ascend from Wasdale Head it shouldn't be too taxing, although it would help if you'd brought the right kit.”

“It would help if I owned the right kit,” Rachel returned tartly, and Claire smothered a smile. She rather liked Rachel's sharp sense of humor when it wasn't directed at her.

“How about we just have a picnic?” Claire suggested. She wasn't all that keen on hiking herself. Plus she was also wearing trainers, and they didn't look as serviceable as Rachel's.

“Why didn't you come prepared?” Andrew asked Rachel with a frown. “You could have borrowed some boots from someone, I'm sure.”

“No one I know owns hiking boots. Or any of the other kit you've got on.”

Besides his top-of-the-line hiking boots Andrew had brought a waterproof anorak, a varnished walking stick, and a rucksack with a first-aid kit and a titanium water bottle. He looked like an advert for
Cumbria Life
.

“I'll walk up the fell while you lot lounge at the bottom, then,” he said. “I want to get a view.”

“We've got a decent view from the car,” Rachel returned. Andrew just shook his head.

Half an hour later they were parked by the Wasdale Head Inn, where a gate marked the way to the Hollow Stones trail, which was, according to Andrew, the “non-hiking route” up Scafell.

He glanced at Claire's shoes as they assembled by the gate. “Seriously?”

She looked down at her Mint Velvet plimsolls. “These are all I had.”

He let out a sigh. “I should have checked before we got in the car.”

Which made her feel like a child, and she could tell that Rachel had noticed. She was frowning as she observed the interaction between her and Andrew, a conversation like a thousand others they'd had over the years.

“You wouldn't have found a pair of hiking boots at home,” Claire said. “We don't have any. Mum and Dad never did this kind of thing, you know.”

“I know,” he said, and pushed open the gate. “We'll go as far as we can. The conditions are dry, at least.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes, navigating the rocky trail, the vista stunning and yet barren, with the steep sweep of treeless fells and the blue flash of the still lake. The air was colder than it had been in Hartley-by-the-Sea, and after fifteen minutes both Claire's legs and lungs started to burn.

“So how come you're the outdoorsy type?” Rachel asked Andrew. She was walking next to him, keeping up with his brisk pace, her arms swinging by her sides. Lily was behind her, and Claire was behind Lily, walking more slowly than anyone else. She could already tell that her plimsolls were not up to the job.

“I like being outside,” Andrew answered. “But I didn't get into hiking until I was in uni and had my own car.” He glanced at Rachel. “How come you aren't the outdoorsy type?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Rachel answered. “I didn't have the holiday time, or my own car, or even the boots. Kind of tricky, without all that.”

Andrew didn't answer, and Claire couldn't tell if he was annoyed by Rachel's comeback or chagrined by his own assumptions. Did he, like Claire, feel like he had to apologize for being rich?

The conversation she'd had with Rachel last Sunday had been picking at her all week. Rachel—confident, brassy, in-your-face
Rachel—
felt Claire had dumped her. It seemed laughable even as Claire
recognized the truth of it. At the time she'd felt as if Rachel had abandoned her to the mercy of the Wyndham girls; she'd wanted Rachel to rescue her. She still remembered the stony look on Rachel's face when she'd stopped short in the school yard and stared straight at Claire, surrounded by the in girls. Then she'd set her jaw, turned on her heel, and walked away. They'd never spoken again.

Claire could still remember glancing covertly at Rachel across the Year Six room during lessons, wondering why she was so stubbornly ignoring her. During a field trip Rachel had picked Oliver Cakewell as her partner even though he picked his nose and wiped it on his trousers. Claire had been partnered with a Wyndham girl—Michaela or Shelly, she couldn't remember. The gaggle of girls who had been her best friends in secondary school had blurred together into one faceless mask. She hadn't seen any of them since she'd left Cumbria for university.

She wished she could say something about all that to Rachel, but she suspected it would sound pathetic. The moment for sharing memories about their childhood days had passed, up on the cliffside overlooking the sea.

Andrew asked Lily about school, and they started chatting while Rachel fell back so she and Claire were almost, but not quite, walking together. Claire tried for a smile, something like the one they'd shared in the car, but Rachel looked away.

Claire tried to concentrate on the view. Having Andrew show up last night had given her a weird, mixed-up feeling of disappointment and relief; she'd had a good week, but she'd been starting to feel lonely. Three days of enduring Dan Trenton's silence had been hard, although admittedly he was talking more than he used to. He'd even trusted Claire alone in the shop for an hour while he'd walked his dog, whose name, she'd learned, was Bunny.

“You named your dog Bunny?” she couldn't keep from saying, trying not to laugh, and Dan had grimaced.

“She came with the name. She's a rescue dog.”

Which made her even more curious about him. Why did the unfriendliest man in the village have a rescue dog? It hinted at a depth and sensitivity to him that she realized she'd sensed even as she'd doubted it was there. And Dan certainly didn't give many opportunities for her to see it. When he'd returned from the walk he'd shouted at her for jamming the Lotto card dispenser, and Claire had cowered almost as much as Bunny did.

He'd given her a terse apology and then comforted the dog before taking her back to his kitchen. For the rest of the day Claire had been on tin-stacking duty.

Even worse than Dan Trenton's was the silence of Four Gables when she'd returned at night. Room after pristine room, all of them empty, the only sign that anyone lived there the faint indentation of her footprints in the thick cream carpets.

She'd had a few pleasant interactions over the week: coffee with Abby down at the café, a walk with Lucy. But the majority of her time was spent alone, fighting off the loneliness that threatened to sweep over her like the waves that crashed onto the shore, icy-cold and overwhelming.

And now she was being melodramatic. She'd spent most of her life alone, even when she was with people. She'd always felt on the periphery, almost like a ghost. She'd chosen it, because it was easier to exist on the sidelines than to fight for the middle. Yet since coming to Cumbria, since meeting people and getting a job and actually living her own life, even if just a little, that sense of isolation had bothered her more. She didn't want to live that way forever.

“Why does your brother treat you like a child?” Rachel asked abruptly.

Claire turned, yanked out of her melancholy reverie. “Because he's my older brother?”

“No, seriously. He acts like you're . . . I don't know, mentally deficient or something.”

Claire let out a dry laugh. “Wow. Thanks.”

“Actually, everyone does. Or did.
I
did.” She turned to give her a hard stare. “Why was that? Why have you always seemed so helpless?”

Claire could feel her cheeks starting to burn. Now both her face and her feet were throbbing. “You really know how to lay on the compliments, Rachel.”

“Seriously, Claire.” Rachel stopped walking, and she forced Claire to stop as well by laying a hand on her arm. Andrew and Lily continued on ahead, oblivious. Claire couldn't hear what they were saying, but they were both waving their hands, engrossed in some discussion. “Why?” Rachel demanded. “You're smart. . . .”

“Actually, I'm not. I never did very well in school.”

“You went to university.”

“I was tutored through all my A levels. I barely scraped by with three Cs.”

“That's not that bad,” Rachel objected. “You still got in somewhere.” Claire shrugged. “Why does Andrew baby you?” she pressed.

“You said you did it too,” Claire answered after a moment. “So why did you?”

“I don't know. I've thought about that. There was something so helpless about you when we were growing up that made me want to reach out. There still is.” She pursed her lips. “I liked it back then. I liked taking caring of you and how much you seemed to appreciate it. But, frankly, now it's annoying.”

Claire tried for a laugh. “I knew I annoyed you now.”

Rachel shook her head impatiently. “Don't you want to stand up for yourself? Tell Andrew to shut it? Tell me to shut it, for that matter—”

“All right,” Claire retorted, and for once her voice came out strong. “Shut it, Rachel.”

Rachel grinned. “Okay, I will. But you need to stand up for yourself more, Claire. Make your own decisions. Live your own life.”

“Noted.” She kept walking, even though she was developing blisters
on both heels, because she didn't think she could stand there and listen to Rachel tell her what to do, even if it was well meant, for another second. She was trying, for heaven's sake. Didn't anyone see that?

“Shall we stop here?” she called up to Andrew. Her feet were killing her.