Cathy blinked back tears and sniffed hard. ‘I couldn’t keep listening to that no matter how much I loved him and how much I wanted to get married. He never even put up a fight when I told him it was over – never got in touch, never tried to win me back. It made me feel that he’d wanted to leave me but just hadn’t known how to do it. I suppose he must have been relieved that I’d done it so he didn’t have to. Then I heard he’d started dating someone else and then the next thing they were getting married and moving away. I was OK with it.’
‘Were you?’
‘What else could I be? Splitting up was what we’d both wanted.’
‘Did you know the woman he married?’
Cathy shook her head.
‘Well at least he didn’t go off with one of your friends…’
‘He would never have done that.’
‘Because his morals were far too good?’ Fleur raised an eyebrow.
‘He would never have hurt me like that.’
‘Do you really think hurting you or not would have come into it?’
‘Yes. He’s not a bad person; he’s just human.’
‘You’re too understanding.’
‘Maybe.’ Cathy gave a wry smile. ‘I don’t see the point in raking up all that again now and I don’t see the point in blaming anyone – what’s done is done.’
She said this with conviction – enough conviction to seemingly persuade Fleur, who simply nodded sagely – but she wished she could truly feel it. Because, for the first time since her mum had left her, Cathy felt not only grief, but overwhelming resentment.
It wasn’t even about Jonas – not really. Seeing him today had triggered something in her, but it wasn’t a longing for him. She didn’t love him now – how could she after five years apart from him – but he represented all the things she’d given up or lost over the last few years, all the ways in which she’d been left behind, and seeing it so clearly for the first time stung.
She’d never admitted it until now, but she suddenly realised she wasn’t faring as well as she’d imagined. She’d been strong and sure and getting on with her life, but it had all been a lie, a lie she’d told herself as well as the rest of the world. This was about more than Jonas – it had to be. If only she could figure out what it all meant and what she had to do to make it better.
Seven
Tuesday was a day off work. Usually Cathy would get up anyway, get dressed, potter around the house or go out – whatever she decided on she’d make sure she kept busy. But this morning there didn’t seem any point. She’d toyed with the idea of going to the forest where her mum’s ashes were scattered and walking amongst the pines, but beyond her window the rain was coming down like arrows from the leaden sky; on a day like this she’d be caked in mud before she’d walked half a mile. It was cold too, and Cathy had turned the thermostat up twice by 10 a.m. in a bid to stave off the chill that had seeped through the house. The exercise book where she’d been cataloguing her recipes was sitting on the kitchen table as she made her second mug of tea but she didn’t feel much like resuming that task either. In fact, after it kept catching her eye, she took it to the sitting room with an inpatient sigh and shoved it into a drawer so she couldn’t see it.
When she went back into the kitchen, she could see her phone light up from where it was plugged in to charge on a corner of the worktop.
She went over to look and saw that it was from Erica, the woman she’d met at the coffee morning at St Cuthbert’s.
Hi Cathy. Hope you’re ok. Just checking if you still want to get that coffee? I’m free on Thursday, just wondering if you are x
Cathy stared at the text for a moment. She’d clean forgotten that she’d given Erica her number and agreed to meet up with her. It seemed rude to say no to their meet-up and even ruder to ignore the message, but she really didn’t feel like doing anything else. So because she didn’t know what to do about it, she simply put the phone down and went back to sit at the table with her cup of tea, staring out of the window at the rain.
Ten minutes later, with her tea cold and barely touched, she looked at her phone again and let out a sigh. It was such a lovely message and she didn’t doubt its sincerity, which made her feel like a miserable cow. She couldn’t help it, but maybe she didn’t have to hide away feeling like this. Maybe she ought to do something to snap out of it, however hard it might be to muster up any enthusiasm for an event that might have her snapping her out of it. In fact, she needed to force herself to do something because, even in her current mood, she recognised that to do nothing might start her on the slippery slope to a place she really wouldn’t be able to get back from.
So she messaged Erica to find out what time she wanted to meet. A few more texts went back and forth and, when they’d finally agreed a time and place to meet, that was that and the date was set.
They’d agreed on a place called Ingrid’s, an indie coffee shop nestled in a little cobbled, fairy-lit alleyway just off the high street. It was one of those rare gems that you wouldn’t know about unless you went looking and you just knew would be worth the effort once you stepped inside. Erica didn’t like chains, she’d said, and would rather support independent businesses, and Cathy hadn’t tried Ingrid’s before and so didn’t mind either way.
It was every bit as cute and quaint on the inside as the outside had tantalisingly promised, and Cathy could see why Erica was such a fan. The floors were richly varnished wood, every wall adorned in a rambling mural of a cherry orchard in full blossom, branches snaking from the floor right up to and out across the ceiling, so vivid and lifelike you could almost hear them creaking and rustling in a spring breeze.
Cathy’s first thought, once she’d finished staring in wonderment, was that it must have taken someone hours and hours – maybe even weeks or months – to paint. She later discovered that Ingrid herself (the eponymous owner) had done it. Ingrid had studied fine art at university in Oslo some years before but, finding the profession too unpredictable an income source, had decided to go into the catering business instead. It had turned out to be almost as unpredictable in the end, only a slightly more predicable kind of unpredictable and in a less glamorous way.
Cathy told her how beautiful she thought it was, and though it was clear that Ingrid heard that a lot, the compliment still made her glow with pride. Cathy had always wished she’d been more arty but, sadly, it was just another thing that she was really bad at. Her mum had always said that Cathy expressed her creativity through her baking but, although Cathy could accept that she had a certain talent with mirror glaze and sugar roses, it was hardly the same.
The meet-up had been strange at first. It was nice to see Erica, of course, but conversation had started off stilted and awkward. After all, they barely knew each other. But then in some ways that negative became a positive too, because it meant there was a lot to talk about and share.
They were sitting on chairs that looked as if they’d been hewn from still-living tree roots, the wood smooth and bleached and delicate with tables to match. At first glance they’d looked beautiful but uncomfortable and Cathy had been surprised to find they were anything but. They had to contain some magical property, because when she sat down it was like the seat had been specially carved to hold her and her alone. In fact, the whole of Ingrid’s coffee house felt sort of magical, like a tea shop populated by gnomes and elves from an Enid Blyton story.