A New Beginning (11 page)

Chapter Nineteen

She drove across to Carlisle and then down the M6 until she spotted the turn-off to Kirkby Lonsdale. Only twelve more miles, she thought with satisfaction. I can do that. But what then? She still wasn’t sure.

She tried to push the doubts out of her mind. She would deal with them when she needed to, she told herself sternly. The first priority was simply to get there. One step at a time.

Kirkby Stephen seemed a very pleasant, historic little town. Kirsty eased her car through the one-way system in the centre, taking it slowly because of the delivery vehicles lining the streets, and looking to get a feel for the place. She managed to park in a small square right in the middle of the town, next to an ancient building with a roof but no walls that she guessed might be called the “Moot Hall”, like a similar building in Keswick. Then she visited a newsagent’s nearby, seeking change for the parking meter and directions to the first address on her short list of remaining names.

‘Lord Street? Just round the corner, love,’ the cheerful man behind the counter advised. ‘First left, second right, and then right again. Halfway down the street. Number Twenty-Three? Left-hand side.’

Kirsty laughed and shook her head at his speed of delivery. ‘Would you mind saying all that again?’ she asked apologetically. ‘My memory isn’t what it should be.’

The man grinned and wrote the directions down on a scrap of paper. ‘Wait till you get to my age,’ he said as he handed it over. ‘Memory? What’s that?’

It was a short street of small terraced cottages. Tidy, well looked-after cottages with fresh-painted doors and windows. Quiet homes in a quiet street. On the outside, at least, Number Twenty-Three was no different to the rest.

A little girl opened the door. She was maybe seven or eight years’ old, Kirsty decided, and a nice, bright little thing with a beautiful smile. It was impossible not to smile back at her.

‘Oh, dear!’ Kirsty said. I think I’ve come to the wrong house.’

‘It’s all right,’ the girl said. ‘No-one minds. You can come in if you want to.’

She spun round then and raced down a passage, shouting for someone, leaving the front door wide open.

Kirsty stood for a moment, undecided, not sure if the little girl had gone to fetch someone else to speak to her or had simply abandoned the front door now she knew it wasn’t one of her friends who had rung the bell.

She heard someone approaching along the passage. She waited. An elderly woman appeared. Like the girl, she wore a bright, welcoming smile.

‘Sorry to bother you,’ Kirsty said. ‘I’ve got the wrong house. I tried to tell the little girl but she was away before I could get the words out of my mouth.’

‘Like lightning, isn’t she?’ the woman chuckled. ‘I can’t keep up with her. Who is it you’re looking for, dear?’

‘A Mr. Robert Simpson.’

‘My husband?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Kirsty said, feeling a little embarrassed. She waved the scrap of paper she held in her hand and added, ‘It must be the other address I have on my list. A younger man,’ she added apologetically.

‘What is the other address? Russell Street?’

‘Yes. That’s it.’

‘Well, he’s not much younger than my husband. Bobby Simpson, we call him. He was only a year or two behind us at school.’

Kirsty felt flat.

‘He’s not a relative, by the way,’ the woman added. ‘It’s just coincidence, him having the same name.’

Kirsty nodded and wondered what to do next.

‘Who else is on your list?’

‘No-one. That’s it. They’re the only addresses I have left, yours and his. I’ve crossed all the others out.’

‘A younger man, you said? It wouldn’t be our Bob, would it? My son?’

Kirsty looked up quickly. ‘It might be. Does he go walking in the Lake District a lot?’

‘He does, yes. Always there, he is. I shouldn’t wonder if he’ll move there eventually.’

‘That sounds like him.’ Kirsty’s heart began to beat faster and she gave the woman a grateful smile. ‘But why couldn’t I find an address for him?’

‘Probably because he’s not anywhere permanent just now.’

‘Oh?’

‘He had a house but he sold it. Didn’t need a house any more, he said.’

Mrs. Simpson grimaced and shrugged. ‘Maybe he doesn’t now. I don’t know. He’s not far away, though. He just lives in the next street, Pennine Lane. Number Six. He has a flat there.’

‘Thank you so much!’ Kirsty said, the excitement mounting.

Chapter Twenty

Pennine Lane, the next street, was much the same as Lord Street. Quiet. Full of parked cars, but no traffic. And no-one much about. It was a cul-de-sac.

Kirsty stood on the corner for a few moments, taking it all in. Then she took a deep breath and began to walk slowly along the pavement, studying the front doors, trying to suppress the panic threatening to engulf her now she was so close.

Looking ahead, she could see which one would be Number Six. On the other side of the road. Cream-coloured door. Smart black knocker and letter box. She would cross over as soon as this man on his bicycle was past.

The man swept by. She paused and then resumed walking. A young woman had just come out of Number Six. Long dark hair, smartly dressed. She looked as if she belonged. Kirsty felt dismayed. Her insides knotted up. Something else he hadn’t mentioned, she thought with disappointment.

She wondered what to do. Then hope flared briefly as she wondered if she was in the wrong street. At the end of the pavement she checked the name plate on the last house. Pennine Lane. No, she’d got it right.

The excitement she’d felt about the prospect of seeing Bob again drained away as she stood staring past the last house, down the muddy path that led to fields, and perhaps to the river beyond. How could she have been so stupid? Of course there was a woman in his life. How could there not be? What had she been thinking?

Well, at least she hadn’t made a fool of herself. She hadn’t arrived on his doorstep still not knowing. He need never know what she had been thinking, and hoping. She would just get on with the main business of coming here. She would talk to him about the inn, and leave it at that. He was free to get on with his life, just as she was with hers. Joyce would approve, she thought sadly. Business and pleasure. Two separate things.

A further shock awaited her. The door to Number Six was opened by the same little girl that had opened the door to the house in Lord Street. Kirsty stared for a moment, stunned. Then, as the little girl laughed at her discomfiture, she recovered and began to chuckle.

‘Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?’ Kirsty asked. ‘Little Miss Mischief, isn’t it?’

The girl clasped a hand to her mouth, giggling. ‘I came the back way. I ran!’ Then she wheeled round and once again raced off, this time distinctly calling, ‘Daddy! Daddy!’

Kirsty winced and began to turn away. She’d got it wrong again, after all. Obviously it was the wrong address. The wrong Bob Simpson, rather. No wonder she had seen a young woman coming out of here. It was her home. The child’s, as well, presumably. Now what was she going to do?

But it was her Bob, the Bob she knew, who came to the door moments later.

He stared, blinked and said, ‘Kirsty?’ Then he shook his head with astonishment and smiled. ‘What are you doing here?’

She smiled back, uncertainly, and tried to recover. ‘Sorry to descend on you like this, Bob. But, yes, it is me.’

‘What on earth…? Come in!’

He stood aside, holding the door open with one hand, and ushered her forward. She stepped inside with reluctance, wondering how on earth she was going to explain herself. Wondering now, in fact, what on earth she was doing here. How had she got herself into this tangle?

The little girl stood behind Bob, watching Kirsty intently with curiosity, not smiling now.

His daughter? Their daughter, perhaps – his and the woman’s? With a cold, empty feeling inside her, Kirsty wondered what else Bob had lied about. Maybe it had all been made up. Everything he’d said.

Things were not as she had believed. And this visit was shaping up to be even more difficult than she had ever imagined.

‘This is Polly,’ Bob said, ‘my daughter.’

‘Your daughter,’ Kirsty repeated mechanically. ‘Hello, Polly,’ she added, trying her best to smile. ‘I’m Kirsty.’

‘Hello, Kirsty,’ Polly said shyly, as if she sensed something important was going on, something to be taken seriously.

‘Your daughter?’ Kirsty said again, eyes back on Bob.

He nodded. He studied her carefully, but he didn’t add anything and he didn’t ask her again why she was here.

‘You must wonder what I’m doing here?’ Kirsty said, feeling something more had to be said by one of them.

Bob smiled and looked anxious now. ‘I expect you’ll tell me in your own good time,’ he said. ‘But if you don’t want to, you won’t.’

In other words, she thought wryly, he won’t insist on knowing. It was up to her. This really was difficult.

‘Put the kettle on, Polly,’ he said, turning back to his daughter. ‘We’ll have a cup of tea.’

‘Polly, put the kettle on!’ Polly sang. ‘We’ll all have tea.’

It broke the log-jam. Kirsty laughed and felt like applauding. Somehow her spirits lifted. It was a lovely moment.

‘Maybe Kirsty likes hot chocolate?’ Polly suggested.

‘Tea would be lovely, thank you,’ Kirsty assured her.

Bob led the way into a living room. ‘The kitchen’s very small,’ he explained. ‘You can’t do much more than boil a kettle in there. In fact, the whole flat’s small, but it’s adequate. Sit down – please.’

She stayed upright and glanced around. It was strange seeing him here, in this unfamiliar place, in this tiny flat. Whenever she’d thought of him, she’d always seen him on a mountain side or in the bar of Fells Inn. And alone. It was disconcerting, seeing him here, with other people. He was too big a man for a little flat in a small house, with a daughter and a... what? Wife? Girlfriend?

But here he was. And here she was. Time to get on with it. She decided to play it straight. No recriminations or complaints. No leading questions. Whatever she had thought it might be when she set off, now it was going to have to be strictly business. She had been silly to allow herself to be deluded into thinking it might be something else. This was a man she didn’t really know.

‘I needed to find out what’s happening about Fells Inn, Bob. That’s basically why I’m here. Henry told me it was you who’d made the offer that’s now been withdrawn. I wanted to check on that before I do anything else.’

He looked puzzled for a moment. Then he nodded. ‘Ah, yes! Fells Inn. That’s why you’re here.’

‘You’ve got some explaining to do,’ she said firmly.

‘You think so?’ he said, raising his eyebrows at her tone.

‘I do.’

She kept her face straight and her voice cool. She wasn’t going to give him so much as an inch on this, whatever the turmoil inside. She wanted a proper explanation, if not an actual apology.

He gave her a wry smile and motioned again to a chair. ‘Sit down, Kirsty. For goodness sake!’

She ignored his invitation and stood still. ‘What’s going on, Bob? Why all the… subterfuge and mystery?’

‘I’ll just get the tea.’

She let him go. She felt deceived and she wanted answers, but she wasn’t going to persecute him.

While she waited, her eyes ran around the room. She wondered who had furnished it, and who had decided on the colour scheme for the walls. Bob, or… the woman she had seen? Perhaps it had just been the landlord?

Then her eyes fastened on a framed photo of Polly and the woman she had seen emerging from the house. No doubt about it now, she thought. She tried not to ask herself again how she could have been so stupid.

She shook her head. She didn’t care. She didn’t really know what to think, except that Bob didn’t seem to be the man she’d thought he was. The world, her world, was a darker shade of grey right now. She hadn’t expected this.

Still, having come all this way, she would at least get the business end sorted out. The rest was a disappointment she could put down to experience. More experience, she thought sadly. She should be used to that by now.

‘It’s good to see you, Kirsty,’ Bob said when he returned. He gave a nervous little laugh and shook his head. ‘I’m just slowly getting over the surprise, the shock. But you’re a very welcome sight – believe me. How did you find me, by the way?’

‘With difficulty, but I managed,’ Kirsty said, refusing to be drawn. ‘What about Polly?’

‘She’s gone to the shops with some pocket money Jean gave her.’

Jean. So that was her name.

‘Bob, I meant who, exactly, is she?’

‘My daughter. I told you.’

He looked at her with surprise.

‘What you told me, Bob, was... Oh, it doesn’t matter! That’s not why I’m here. I came to find out what’s happening about Fells Inn.’

‘How do you take your tea?’ he asked gravely, like someone’s mother.

‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head impatiently. ‘Usually I have coffee.’

‘Coffee? I can...’

‘Milk, no sugar, please.’

She watched as he poured the tea, added milk, stirred, and handed her a cup and saucer. She was surprised again. Somehow she had expected a mug, a big, chipped mug.

‘Polly,’ he said slowly, sitting down opposite her, gathering his thoughts. ‘Polly is my daughter. The centre of my life. She’s what’s left of my family. Not counting my parents and other relatives, who’ve been absolutely marvellous, but...’ He shrugged and broke off.

Kirsty took a moment to digest what he’d said. ‘You mean…?’ she began slowly.

‘What I told you was true. My wife and two sons, I lost. Marie, and David and James. My family was destroyed. But I kept Polly. I was never a religious man but I’ve thanked God often enough for that. Polly kept me going in the bad times. She was who I had to keep going for.’

Kirsty kept quiet, thoughts whirring around inside her head. She wondered if she had been on the verge of a terrible mistake.

‘How is it that Polly…?’

‘Survived?’

She nodded.

Bob gave a sad little chuckle. ‘It’s very simple. She didn’t go on the holiday. She couldn’t. She had the chickenpox. So we left her with my mother, rather than see the holiday go down the tubes for all of us.’

It hit her with a sort of dull clunk, the sheer banality of it. Polly didn’t go with them. So she survived.

‘And Jean?’

‘My sister. She helps with Polly.’

‘Oh, dear,’ Kirsty murmured, feeling tears welling up.

Bob gave her a sad little smile and looked away again.

She sat down at last. ‘But why didn’t you tell me about her, about Polly?’

‘I don’t know, really. Fear, maybe. Superstition. I don’t like to tempt fate by talking about her lucky escape.’ He gave a little shrug and added, ‘It’s a fault, maybe. But I didn’t expect you to find out. At first, there was no reason why you ever would.’

Kirsty felt she understood. She had wondered for a moment if Polly had been brushed out of the story of his life because he didn’t want her now the others were gone. But only for a moment. She had no doubt now why he had not mentioned her before. It made sense. To her, it made sense that he wouldn’t want to tempt fate. Polly was too precious to risk.

‘I would have done the same thing,’ Kirsty said quietly. ‘I don’t blame you at all, Bob. She’s a lovely little girl. How wonderful that you have her. How lucky you are.’