Forgive Me (27 page)

‘There is someone, but he’s just
a friend.’ And she went on
to tell him how she had met Phil.
‘He’s really nice – fun, interesting and kind.’

He smiled and raised one eyebrow. ‘Is
he the reason you are reluctant to take a holiday?’

‘No,’ Eva said, but she felt
herself blush. ‘It isn’t a romance, just a friendship. I make dinner for
him, we go to the pictures and to the pub. I really like him, he’s such good
company, but that’s all.’

‘That sounds very much like how it was
with your mother and me when we first met,’ Patrick said. ‘I accepted that I
had to go along with her terms. But I wanted more.’

‘I don’t think Phil
does.’

‘Oh really!’ Patrick smirked.
‘Men don’t usually go for the “just good friends” thing. I think
it’s more likely he’s biding his time, because he’s waiting for your
bruises to heal. You have been hurt by someone other than Andrew, haven’t
you?’

She was a little surprised that he’d
homed in on that, but then he was very perceptive about everything. So she told him
about Tod. ‘I’m over it now,’ she said quickly. ‘Actually, I
can’t really believe that I reacted the way I did – after all, I’d only
known him a short while.’

‘Coming so soon after your mum’s
death, your reaction wasn’t surprising,’ he said, crossing his arms and
looking at her thoughtfully. ‘You probably were very needy and intense, and men do
get frightened by that. But if you want my honest opinion, Eva, I’d say Tod did
you more good than harm. He made you happy and boosted your confidence when you needed
it most. Remember that, and forget how it ended. I’m a firm believer that
everything happens to us for a purpose. You ran here because of Tod and, as it turned
out, that’s a good thing.’

‘You are very wise,’ she
said.

‘It comes of having made every mistake
in the book,’ he
admitted ruefully. ‘If I could go back
and do it all again, the one thing I would do differently is not to hop into bed with
people too quickly. You make rash promises, you let lust cloud your vision. There was a
lot to be said for old-fashioned courtship. It’s good to get to know someone
really well before you sleep with them. Perhaps your friend Phil thinks that
too.’

She got out the old photograph album that
was in Flora’s box. As Patrick turned the pages he was able to tell her that the
very old couple were her great-grandparents. ‘That’s your
grandmother,’ he said, stopping at a very faded picture of a woman standing
beneath a tree wearing an apron over her clothes. Next, he paused at a man in a cloth
cap and tweed jacket leading a horse. ‘This is your grandfather. I think Flora was
closer to him than to her mother, who she said was very neurotic.’ He turned the
pages till he came to one of her grandfather standing by a gate with a very
gaunt-looking woman. ‘That’s your grandfather’s sister. I can’t
remember her name, but Flora said she was very stern. She looks it, doesn’t she?
Of course they are all dead now. And as Flora was an only child, and her aunt was a
spinster, I don’t think you have any more relatives.’

They moved on then to the books of sketches
of children. Patrick smiled at them. ‘We both had the idea of illustrating
children’s books back then,’ he said, ‘but it’s a hard field to
get into. I was lucky in that Mabel, the writer of the Mr Bear books, was a friend and
insisted I illustrate them for her. Without her guidance I doubt I’d have become a
success. She was able to tell me what small children and their mothers like in
illustrations. But Flora wasn’t the kind to take any guidance from people. She
believed a writer should fit the story around her illustrations, and it doesn’t
work like that.’

Eva didn’t expect Patrick to pore over
the diaries with her, but she opened up one to illustrate how confusing they were with
no dates, no names and barely a hint of where Flora was at the time of writing.

Patrick put on a pair of reading glasses and
frowned as he tried to read. ‘I’m none the wiser,’ he said. ‘I
remember the Bistingo. She worked there in the evenings – it was somewhere in Bayswater,
I think – but I never went there. These people she mentions must have been casual
friends she made there, I don’t think she even told me about them. Like I said
before, she took a perverse delight in being obscure. I think it was partly because her
mother used to pry into her life as a teenager. So good luck with trying to pin her
down, Eva – I suspect it would tax a professional code breaker.’

Patrick finally left at five. He only lived
in Chiswick but he said he had to get home early, as he had some important work to do.
He left a card with his telephone number and address and said she could call him any
time.

‘I’d like to take you out to
dinner next weekend,’ he said, giving her a hug. ‘We’ll go somewhere
very swish so you can dress up. You might not be my biological daughter, but I’d
have been thrilled if you were. So if you want me to be a stand-in dad, and boss you
around, I’m happy to fill the role.’

She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.
‘OK, Mr Bear, the job is yours. All I can say is that Mum was a mug to ever leave
you.’

As she waved him off at the door she felt
warm inside. She now had a far greater sense of who Flora had been, at least in her
youth. She might still have a great many questions to find the answers to, but it was a
good start.

Through the rain Eva spotted a road sign up
ahead which said it was seven miles to Carlisle. She straightened up her aching back in
relief; she should have taken Phil’s advice and stopped for the night in
Lancashire, or even gone to see Ben in Leeds, instead of pushing on this far in one
day.

But even if she was tired and aching from
the long drive, she felt good about leaving London to go to Scotland. She didn’t
wish to run into Myles again, and she needed to think about her future.

Meeting Patrick had been marvellous; she
would put him second only to Phil in the list of people she felt lucky to have in her
corner. She’d had several chats on the phone with him since their first meeting.
And he’d taken her out to dinner, which had been a real treat.

His words about Phil’s feelings for
her had stayed with her too. He could be right that Phil really did want to be more than
just a friend, because he’d called round to see her yesterday evening as she was
packing.

‘How would you feel if I suggested I
joined you up in Scotland?’ he asked a little sheepishly.

‘I’d tell you to get
lost,’ she joked. Seeing his face fall, she was quick to tell him that was
supposed to be funny. ‘I’d love it. But aren’t you busy at
work?’

‘I am right now with this big job in
Hampstead, but I think that will be done in another five or six days. I’ve got
holiday due to me and I’ve never been to Scotland. I really want to see the
Highlands.’

He had a funny look on his face, as if he
wanted to say something more and couldn’t get it out.

‘I’d love to see Scotland with
you,’ she said. ‘I doubt it will be much fun roaming around on my own. You
could come up by train when you’re ready, and I could meet you at the
station.’

His face lit up. He moved closer to her and
put his hands either side of her face. ‘I don’t only want to see the
scenery. I also want to make sure you don’t run off with some wild
Scotsman.’

‘I’d rather run off with some
lovely Londoner,’ she said, looking right into his eyes.

He kissed her on the forehead, but she
sensed he really wanted to kiss her lips. She didn’t know why she didn’t
just slide her arms around him to give him some encouragement, but she supposed she was
afraid of taking the initiative.

‘Phone me in the evenings and let me
know where you are,’ he said. ‘Meanwhile, I’ll sort it at
work.’

Thinking of that moment warmed her, and if
he did join her up here, then maybe they could both stop being bashful.

He’d been very happy for her that
she’d met Patrick and that they were getting along so well. She wanted Patrick to
meet Phil; she was sure they’d like one another. Perhaps after the holiday?

Reaching over to the passenger seat, she
picked up the directions to the guest house she had booked into for the night. It was in
a place called Wetheral, which didn’t appear to be too far from the motorway.

She had never been further north than
Blackpool before. Although she’d heard hundreds of times that the scenery in
Cumbria was breathtakingly beautiful, she was still astounded by it. She remembered when
she was small having a tin box of Lakeland coloured pencils for Christmas one year. The
picture
on the lid was of mountains with a purple tinge which Flora
had said was heather. She’d seen that majestic view today: tiny white dots that
were sheep grazing at seemingly precarious heights, and only a few tiny stone cottage
houses nestling here and there to prove it wasn’t complete wilderness.

She guessed that in sunshine and away from
the motorway the scenery would be even more spectacular, and she hoped that if Phil
joined her they could explore it together.

The rain stopped and the sun came out just
as she got to Wetheral. To lift her spirits even more she was thrilled to find it was a
real village, with a village green and pretty cottages all around it. The Briars, the
bed and breakfast she’d booked into, was amongst them.

Before checking in she took a short walk to
stretch her legs and found a wide, fast-flowing river just a hundred yards below the
green. With the late afternoon sun shining on the water, and green hills all around, it
looked beautiful.

The Briars was equally lovely in a slightly
old-fashioned flowery way, spotlessly clean and smelling of lavender polish. Eva’s
room overlooking the green was pretty, with peach Laura Ashley wallpaper, a matching
quilt on the very comfortable double bed, and frilly curtains. The bathroom was
minuscule, but there were fluffy peach towels and an array of mini toiletries.

Mrs Hobbs, the middle-aged landlady, gave
her a warm welcome, suggesting that Eva come down after seeing her room to have some tea
in the guests’ sitting room. There she met a couple in their thirties who had also
just arrived. Like Eva, they were breaking their journey before driving on to Scotland
in the morning. Mrs Hobbs said they could have dinner, if they wished, and that tonight
it was roast chicken.

By ten that evening, Eva was more than ready
for her bed.
Dinner had been absolutely delicious, with a choice of
three different puddings afterwards. It had been served at one large table, and aside
from Eva there were three other couples. It had been a jolly evening, as all the guests
were very chatty. One of the things which had worried Eva about coming away on her own
was that she would feel lonely, but if this bed and breakfast was anything to go by, she
wouldn’t be.

After a huge fried breakfast the next
morning, Eva packed her bag and paid her bill. It was such a lovely morning that she
went for a walk before driving on to Scotland. As she walked along the river bank she
thought how lovely it would be to buy a house somewhere like this village to turn into a
guest house. She wondered if Mrs Hobbs had enough guests all year round to earn a decent
living or if her husband, who Eva hadn’t seen, had a job that provided the real
income and they only earned pin money from the guests.

All the way to Pitlochry her thoughts kept
returning to the idea of owning a guest house. She assumed property would be a great
deal cheaper than in London, and it would be fun to do up a big house room by room, each
one with a different theme. Perhaps she should forget the idea of becoming an interior
designer and instead go in for something in the hotel trade to gain experience? Or get
the guest house up and running, and then train to be an interior designer?

But even as these thoughts came to her she
smiled, knowing this was only a pleasant daydream. She could bet that half the people
who visited Cumbria and Scotland had such thoughts while on holiday. And of the few that
actually opened a guest house, most would find it wasn’t anywhere near as
rewarding as they imagined.

Pitlochry was surrounded by mountains and
built above the wide river which ran through a wooded valley, but the town
was bigger and busier than she expected. Essentially Victorian, it
had a gracious charm with many fine, big houses. The main street was lined with shops
and pubs which catered for the thousands of tourist, who passed through it on their way
to the Highlands.

Eva thought Flora might have intended to do
the same, but ended up staying here because she realized she wasn’t actually cut
out for isolation.

Sadly, Brae Bank hotel was not what she
imagined from its name. Not a pretty hotel perched on a riverbank, but a rather
forbidding grey stone building which looked as if it had once been a public house.
Extensions had been added without any thought to the overall look of the property.
Inside, the tartan carpets were worn and the wood panelling in the reception area was
scuffed and dusty-looking.

A coach pulled up just as she was signing
the register and disgorged about eighteen elderly people who appeared to be touring
around Scotland. Eva guessed that this was the usual clientele, and she wasn’t
likely to find any soulmates here. Yet the receptionist was very pleasant, giving her
the breakfast times and pointing out the bar. Then she asked a lad to escort Eva to her
room, and said if she needed anything more she only had to ask.

It was a small drab room on the top floor in
the oldest part of the building. The double bed was covered in an orange candlewick
bedspread – the kind she remembered Andrew’s parents having in their home. But
whatever the room’s shortcomings, the view from the window was superb. She could
see right over the town, to the river and the mountains beyond. The bathroom was almost
as big as the bedroom, very stark with old-fashioned black and white tiles on the walls
and grubby-looking lino which was peeling back in the corners. But there was a
television in the bedroom, tea-making
facilities and even a small
fridge. She thought she could be quite content here for a week, and it was very
cheap.