Emily flew along the hall and into Noah’s room. It was dark and Noah was sprawled inelegantly on his stomach, his face mashed into the pillow. She shook him vigorously.
He spluttered awake. ‘Wha—?’
‘Noah, I need you.’
Noah had barely blinked into consciousness before she was firing instructions at him for taking care of Lena and the shop. ‘I need to go out.’
Noah rolled his eyes. ‘Gee, thanks for the update. Couldn’t you, like, leave me a note, or send me a text or something?’ He slid beneath his covers again.
‘I have to go find Kate.’
‘Find her, is she lost?’
‘I don’t have time to explain. I’m going out. I’m not exactly sure where, or when I’ll be back, but I need you to pay attention: you have to take care of Lena, and the wood burner is arriving at the shop today.’
Noah was looking at her sceptically, his sleep-dulled brain forming questions, but Emily was already spinning on her heel and heading for the door. ‘Thanks, Noah. Oh, and you can’t have Jasper, I might need him.’
She made a panicked circuit of the house, looping back and forth as she forgot things on the first lap. Clothes, a cursory wash, pulling on socks whilst hopping down the hall, searching for a trainer which she unearthed beneath the sofa, trying to school herself to calm so as not to alert Lena that anything was wrong.
She was out of the house in minutes. Without her stuff and with no transport there was a limit to how far Kate could have gone.
What might have seemed like overreaction to anyone else, was to Emily perfectly understandable in the context of Kate. When your childhood was solitary and dysfunctional, spent searching for scraps of love and security, any hint of emotional disturbance sparked anew that childish impulse to flee, to hide.
When things had been difficult once before, Kate had made a snap decision to flee to America; as she exited the house and began to search the grounds, Emily resolved not to let that happen again.
*
At the bottom of the garden a track meandered through the woods. At the point at which it was bisected by the stream there was a steep drop. Just past the footbridge, Lena had fashioned a rope swing over the bank to entertain her grandchildren, much to the chagrin of their mother, who fretted about the safety of the arrangement the first time she glimpsed it. Lena had assured her she would take it down and swore the children to secrecy. Over the next decade, the Cotton children continued to love this spot more than anywhere else in the grounds, even the whole of Galloway, and they continued to enjoy the rope swing without any dread calamity befalling them, save an occasional splashdown in the stream below. ‘Luckily, you children bounce,’ Lena had said sagely, on the occasion of a rather hard fall of Dan’s, as she cleaned the grazes on his palms and shins. What story they had concocted for Melanie to explain away Dan’s bruises, Kate couldn’t remember.
But she could remember many a happy hour spent playing here well into their teens. This was where they came to light campfires and evade adult meddling.
It was here that Kate sought solace now. This was the place she had chosen to say her silent goodbyes to Bluebell Bank and the Cottons. Pausing by the old gnarly oak overhanging the stream, she knew she would be leaving, this time for good,
The swing swung still. The high bank afforded a quick, exhilarating drop, and she remembered the rope itself was tricky to master; knotted as it was into a single loop which was large enough only to accommodate one foot. Swinging off the bank was fun, but scrabbling back up was rather more difficult.
Kate had acquired the knack her first summer, encouraged by Dan’s patient tuition as, time and again, he held the rope steady for her, caught her and pulled her to safety. This place was the site of Luke’s first initiation into the Cotton clan on the night of her birthday bonfire – Fergus grinning and holding the rope out to Luke in challenge – and of Fergus’s more inglorious moments – he was prone to showing off and landing ignominiously in the burn below.
Kate slid down the oak until her back was pressed against the trunk. She tipped her head back, staring upwards into a canopy of leaves. The memories pressed sharp here. The membrane was thin and she imagined she could hear them: Luke whooping with excitement, Emily helpless with laughter, Dan yelling as he got dunked trying to rescue clumsy Fergus; happy laughter as they lit the fire so the boys could dry themselves by the flames.
She twined her fingers in the grass woven through the roots of the big tree. She would miss this place. She found it hard to imagine a future in which she would never sit beneath this tree, never again hear the ghosts of her childhood speak to her from this spot.
Sometimes you didn’t realise how precious a place was, how every step in life was bearing you back there, until you arrived and breathed in its scent and felt its air on your skin.
But it was all ruined now. Nothing was quite as it should be.
Kate knew that Emily often returned to the favoured books of her childhood, comforted and reassured to find that the characters had not transformed between the pages in her absence; that they were as they had always been, waiting just for her: a place to drop anchor in a crazy, storm-tossed world. That was what Kate had expected from Bluebell Bank and its cast of characters: that they would have ceased to act independently once she closed the leaves of the book and trapped them within.
But they had jumped right out of the confines of the pages, living lives that confused Kate. How could they be her sanctuary, her solidity in this world, when each was struggling to find his own way?
Her throat ached but she could no longer cry. Old hurts and new churned in her mind.
The pain of Luke and Emily, of course, and a dull pang of regret for Dan. Even a brief lament for Ben. And an extra ache for her mother, who had tried for a decade to win her forgiveness but Kate had never let it be enough. She closed her eyes against the cheerful sun streaming through the leaves. Could she go back to New York, pretend none of this ever happened and pick up where she left off?
Or should she return to Edinburgh and finally make things right with Lily?
She had been irrevocably changed by this brief sojourn on the Solway. She fancied she fitted into neither world now, belonged nowhere.
She tried out the two versions of her future: eating sushi in her favourite restaurant with friends who couldn’t know her the way Emily did, and whose lives would have moved on immeasurably this summer; or strolling in the Meadows with Lily, forging tentative peace.
Neither image fully fitted. Instead, she felt the sharpness of rock beneath her skin, the wind whipping her uncombed hair and Luke’s laughter in her ear. His eyes, bright and warm and amused as he gazed down at her: the beach at St Ninian’s Cave, when their future was so full of promise. If only she had realised how transient, how precious, those moments were.
Wallowing in her misery, she inhaled the scent of him, carried on his hoodie, which, inexplicably, she had been unable to take off. She smelled of him – she couldn’t escape him at all.
Her mind flitted like a butterfly, unable to settle. Suddenly it was filled with Emily: thirteen years old and laughing with her in the dinghy, clutching the sides as it tipped alarmingly, her head thrown back, hair everywhere, eyes lit up and luminous with laughter.
Emily: the first person to show Kate her worth.
Then Emily was seventeen and her smiles were false, covering up her attempt to spirit Luke away. Anger tasted like bile. Emily had destroyed everything. Kate couldn’t stay, ignore the fact that all afterwards was contaminated by that kiss. She had once lost Emily to Joe, but she had always believed that they would come back to each other. She was so ready for the email when it came. If she left now … but how could she not?
With malevolence at the heart of their friendship, they could not go on as if nothing had happened. Kate couldn’t imagine wanting to speak to Emily ever again, but she also couldn’t picture a world in which she wasn’t Emily’s best friend.
*
Emily found her. She was blundering through the trees, the snap and crack of twigs alerting Kate to her presence. As she stumbled into the clearing by the stream, cursing a thin branch that whipped back in her face, she glimpsed Kate wiping the last traces of tears with the cuffs of her over-large sweater.
She sagged with relief that she was not too late.
‘There you are. I didn’t think you could have gone far.’ She went towards her, then thought better of it and stopped; she crouched some distance away on the dew-damp grass and studied Kate cautiously. ‘So, Luke called.’
‘Did he?’ Kate’s tone was flat.
‘I saw your room. Suitcase packed and ready to go. Were you planning to say goodbye?’
Kate shrugged, not looking at her. ‘I was planning to ask for a ride. If not you, then Dan.’
‘I’m sure Dan wouldn’t take much persuading to do your bidding,’ Emily said caustically, then mentally kicked herself.
Kate’s head snapped up. ‘That’s what you have to say? A dig about my relationship with your brother?’
‘I wasn’t aware you had a relationship with my brother until Luke told me five minutes ago.’ Emily knew she was saying this all wrong. Where were the heartfelt apologies and outpourings of emotion? Instead, she felt spiky, snarled up with anger of her own.
‘I don’t owe you an explanation. Luke maybe, but not you.’ Kate drew up her legs and wrapped her arms around them, settling her chin on her knees. She turned her head away.
Emily’s tone softened. ‘Well, I owe you an explanation. And I’d really like it if you would put off running back to New York until you’ve heard what I’ve got to say.’
Kate’s voice was muffled by her arms. ‘Nothing you have to say could make a difference.’
‘You don’t know that. You came all this way …’
‘Yeah, stupid me. I came all this way just to discover that you were the cause of my heartbreak. You tried to steal my boyfriend, then pretended to be just as baffled as I was when he dumped me! You patted me on the back and commiserated and you never said anything. I came all this way to find my best friend, and it turns out you were the one stabbing me in the back. Maybe you and he were seeing each other all along.’
‘Don’t be so dramatic! And stupid. Of course we weren’t seeing each other.’ A small measure of Emily’s pent-up rage exploded, but she caught it in time, reined it in. Softly she said, ‘OK, the bit about causing your heartbreak might be partly true. But it’s not the whole story. And there are other things we have to talk about. Like Joe.’
Kate looked up, her eyes red-rimmed and determined. ‘Why? Are you getting back with him? Did you find a modicum of self-respect left that he didn’t completely destroy first time round? Going back to give him another shot at it?’
Emily winced. ‘Just tell me you haven’t booked a flight yet?’
Sigh. ‘I haven’t.’
‘Then there’s still time.’
Kate dropped her head onto her knees again. ‘Time for what?’
‘Time to talk. Really talk to each other. Come on, Kate, we’ll take Jasper and go for a drive. I’ll explain everything. Please, Kate, just a couple of hours out of your life, then you can do whatever you want.’
Kate shook herself, stood up and began to walk away with swift steps. ‘That’s right,’ Emily yelled. ‘Run away again, that’s what you’re good at.’
Kate stopped and her spine stiffened. She spun. ‘Seems to me we’re both pretty good at it.’
Emily gazed at her steadily. ‘But we’re not teenagers any more, Kate. We should have a proper discussion, like the grown-ups we are.’
Kate shook her head in despair. ‘I can’t, Em. I’m so angry at you right now.’
Emily took a deep breath. She was angry too; she hated to resort to emotional blackmail, but it seemed she had no choice. ‘So you are going to run away? What about Noah, and Lena? How will I explain it to them? They need you too.’
They glared at each other. Emily’s mobile rang. She swore and rummaged in her jeans pocket to find it. She stabbed at the screen and held it to her ear. ‘Yes!’ she barked.
‘Em, it’s Dan.’
‘I’m kind of busy, Dan. Can this wait?’
‘Um, not really. Abby’s in labour. We’re just on our way to the hospital.’
‘Seriously? Dan! Oh God, that’s—’
‘Crazy? Terrifying? Exciting? Yeah, all of the above. Listen, I have to go. I’ll keep you guys posted. Are you with Noah and Kate?’
‘Kate, yes. We were just … taking a walk. Noah’s at the shop today and Lena’s back home. I’ll tell them what’s going on. Well, except for Lena, I don’t want her to get worked up before we actually know something. You want me to call Mum and Dad?’
‘Not yet. No point getting them all excited either, not until there’s a baby to celebrate. This could still take a while. I just wanted to share it with you. Listen, got to go, Abby is yelling at me—’ He hung up.
Emily lowered the phone slowly. Kate was looking at her. ‘The baby is coming,’ Emily said in wonder, with a hint of triumph. ‘So you can’t leave.’
‘The baby is coming now?’
‘Yeah. My brother’s actually having a baby! Well, in a manner of speaking.’ It was strange, Emily thought. In other circumstances she would be throwing her arms around Kate. They would be jumping about like lunatics, sharing the crazy joy of it.
Kate sighed and rubbed her hands over her face. ‘This doesn’t change anything. I don’t want to talk to you. I’m furious with you.’ Her voice shook and Emily could see the pain in her eyes, feel her anger vibrating from her. If they were boys, they would have come to blows.
‘I don’t need you to talk,’ Emily said. ‘I need you to listen.’ She stood up, brushed off the damp seat of her jeans. ‘You can hate me all you want, but we both know you’re not going to leave without a word to Lena and Noah, or without waiting for the baby to be born. So let’s go.’
She began to walk away, half turning to check that Kate was following.
Kate hesitated. She felt tethered; there were too many points of attachment – Lena, Noah, Dan, Abby’s baby – trapping her in this moment, forcing her to face up to the past instead of succumbing to the urge to run.
Fine, she would take a drive if that was what Emily wanted. But Emily might regret trying to make her stay; she didn’t plan to hold back. And the second that baby pushed its way into the world she was gone.