‘Let me know when you want a hand with the cases!’ trilled Archie at breakfast. He then disappeared until an hour later, by which time Lily had lugged both her and Moira’s suitcases downstairs and they were standing by the reception desk, settling the bill.
‘It’s been such a pleasure having you lovely ladies stay at our humble abode,’ he said, as he popped Moira’s credit card into the machine. ‘I hope you’ll be back next year, when you continue the trip?’
‘We absolutely will,’ Moira said. ‘But you’ll need to improve your cooking. Those scrambled eggs I had this morning were bloody awful.’
‘Mum!’ Lily turned and glared at Moira. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Campbell. That’s not true at all. Breakfast was delicious.’
‘Bollocks,’ said Moira. ‘Lily, you said yourself that you’ve never known someone to make such a fuck-up of a fry-up.’
‘Anyway!’ Lily turned and picked up the cases. ‘I’ll just get these out and into the van. Mrs Campbell, thank you so much for your hospitality and for all your help when my mother was ill. We really appreciate it.’
Joan was standing by the front door wearing an apron with a picture on it of a French maid’s uniform. ‘We have loved having you to stay,’ she said, watching as Lily puffed past with the heavy cases. ‘What a pity Toby isn’t here. He’d be able to help you with those.’
Eleanor’s things were already stowed in the campervan, and she had set up a temporary office on the table in the back. Her mobile was on charge, she had two water bottles and a notebook within easy reach, her laptop was open and she was tapping away furiously. ‘I’m hot-spotting at the moment, but we’ll need to stop to get proper wifi at some stage,’ she said, not taking her eyes off the screen as Lily heaved the cases in through the open side door. ‘I’ve got a meeting at 11.30 so I’ve worked out all the timings and we’ll need to have got to the Charnock Richard services by then. It’s near Chorley, about ninety miles away. But we should be fine provided we don’t get held up in too much traffic.’
‘Right,’ said Lily, stopping to catch her breath. ‘Fine. We’ve got Granny’s weak bladder to factor into the journey too, don’t forget. She may well need us to stop before then.’
Eleanor looked horrified. ‘Well, she won’t be able to! We’ve got a schedule to stick to.’
‘I’m not sure seventy-nine-year-old bladders are very good at sticking to schedules,’ said Lily as she slid shut the side door.
Moira was making her way down the front steps, with Joan Campbell holding on to her elbow. ‘I can manage!’ she snapped, trying to pull herself away. ‘You people are so clingy!’
Lily held open the passenger door and thanked Joan effusively, trying to make up for her mother’s bad temper.
‘Ladies!’ called Archie, coming down the steps with something in his hands. ‘I have a wee gift for you. It’s a little token of our esteem. We give it to all our favourite customers.’
‘Food poisoning?’ asked Moira.
‘Mum, shut up. Thank you so much, Mr Campbell,’ said Lily. ‘How very kind of you.’ She held out her hands and accepted the package, which was a plastic bag wrapped around something and sealed with Sellotape.
‘Bon voyage!’ called Joan, running her hands up and down the front of her apron. Lily had to turn away, it looked suspiciously as if she was a French maid caressing herself.
‘Safe travels!’ said Archie.
As the van engine roared into life, Lily let off the handbrake and began the first part of a seven-point turn to get out of the ridiculously narrow car parking space.
‘Bye!’ called Joan.
‘Ciao!’ called Archie.
‘Wave at them, Mum!’ said Lily, through gritted teeth as she hauled the steering wheel back and forth. ‘Keep waving until we’re out of sight.’
‘Goodbye!’ yelled Moira, through the closed passenger window, before starting to sing. ‘So long, farewell!’
‘For God’s sake,’ muttered Eleanor.
‘It’s from the Sound of Music!’ Moira said, turning round. ‘Do you remember this one, Eleanor?’
‘Granny, please stop singing.’
‘Adieu, goodbye, to all of you!’ Moira belted out, as Lily changed gear and the campervan crawled back up the hill.
‘Jesus Christ, please don’t tell me we’ll have this all the way to Brighton,’ muttered Eleanor.
‘Oh, do be quiet, both of you,’ said Lily. She was pushing the accelerator to the floor and willing the old van to keep on grinding up the hill to the main road, where she would join the A66 and start following signs towards the motorway. As she stared through the windscreen, she wondered where this shower had come from? She had checked the weather forecast last night and no rain was forecast. She flicked on the windscreen wipers but they scraped back and forwards across the glass, making no difference at all.
When they reached the junction at the top of the hill and she slowed to wait for a gap to join the faster moving traffic, she realised it wasn’t raining. The blurriness ahead of her was due to her own tears; they were welling up in her eyes so fast, she couldn’t have wiped them all away again even if she hadn’t had both hands firmly fixed on the steering wheel.
‘So long again and goodbye to you!’ Moira belted out, at the top of her voice.
‘Granny, stop singing!’ yelled Eleanor.
Lily tried to take a breath, but let out a sob instead. Above the roar of the engine and the sound of Moira’s singing, neither her mother nor her daughter noticed. She accelerated onto the A66 and sat back in her seat as a sign ahead told her there were eighteen miles to the M6.
Her head was full of him. She could picture his broad back, his shoulders, his taut stomach, his forearms as they wrapped themselves around her. She could see his beautiful brown eyes, his smile, the slant of his cheekbone as he’d turned sideways in the rowing boat last night, laughing at something stupid she’d said. She could smell him, that aftershave, as well as the salty sweat of him when she’d woken up in his arms in the Hamilton Hotel. Had that really been less than a week ago? In some ways it seemed like no time at all, but it also felt like a lifetime. Just a week previously, this amazing man hadn’t been in her life, but now she could hardly remember what it had been like not to know him. But he wasn’t even in her life! That was the whole point – that’s what was making her feel so damn sad.
She had slept badly last night, when she got back from the lake. Maybe it had been a mistake to agree to meet him one last time? It would have been easier to set off this morning if he wasn’t still so fresh in her mind. Or possibly not easier, just slightly less raw. The pain she felt at leaving him behind was all-encompassing, but she had to be realistic and sensible and accept that this was probably going to be the end of Jake and whatever else might have happened between them. Her mood had instantly lifted, last night, when he’d talked about coming down to Brighton to visit her, but she was pretty sure that, in the cold light of day, he would think better of the idea. It was too far to go for a quick visit; the Lake District to the East Sussex coast just wasn’t practical. It was sad and depressing – and bloody unfair – but sometimes life just didn’t work out the way you wanted it to.
‘I leave and say goodbye!’ Moira sang. ‘Goodbye to all of you!’
Lily took more deep breaths. It will be fine, she told herself, I can do this. But even as she chanted the words inside her head, she didn’t believe them. It felt as if there was a hole in the pit of her stomach, and the more miles she put between herself and Keswick, the more empty she felt. There was nothing left inside her, because she’d given her heart to a doctor who’d taken her out last night in a little wooden rowing boat on Derwentwater.