Getting the Room for a Night and Love an Empty schemes properly off the ground had been a tough battle. It made Karin think she did have some of her mother’s drive and tenacity after all.
The charity’s aim was to help homeless people get back into society, giving them skills for life. The Love an Empty scheme fit this vision perfectly. Doing up unoccupied homes, they had a guaranteed roof over their heads at the end of it. Will was to be one of the first to move in next week to the Ashby Road project. Karin had the Yorkshire Post and local TV networks lined up to fanfare its completion. Of course, she dreamed of national coverage so that her mother might see her being interviewed on BBC Breakfast and News at Ten, or on the front page of The Times and the Guardian, maybe hear her on Radio Four. Erase all those years of being an embarrassment and disappointment to her. Sometimes she just wished they could start again.
No matter. This was a big achievement all the same.
The area around Ashby Road had once been popular with students but now many of the houses were left empty and neglected as the student population had gravitated towards the city centre into flats with en suites, gyms and on-site shops. For the past few weeks, Karin had been busy with garden maintenance, enjoying the run of long summer days.
Number sixty-eight was Will’s house, along with seven other residents. In a couple of days the scaffolding would be gone from these houses and they would look lived-in and loved again. Karin spotted a yellow hat visible between the metal bars on the first level, but not much activity going on. As she walked up the path, the site manager was coming towards her wiping the sweat off his face with his forearm. He greeted her with the news that two people had called in sick and he warned her they were in danger of not meeting their deadline. There was no sign of Will yet either, but Karin felt sure he would show up at some point.
Will had needed a lot of convincing at first that this wasn’t a trick or another half-hearted promise. He had had too many of those in his life. Karin assured him that this opportunity would never be taken away from him, as long as he worked hard. It was a chance to get qualifications, maybe go to university, with a well-paid job at the end of it. Like Karin, he finally had the option of a proper future. Will had been so keen throughout the project, helping out at every stage; the one person she could rely on to do whatever she asked.
‘I’ll get some agency help in,’ Karin said.
The site manager shook his head, saying it would be expensive and there were no special rates for charities. But Karin had funds now, which she could use on the quiet in circumstances such as this. Maybe she could pretend to be an anonymous donor, the secret millionaire boss. It gave her a warm feeling to be able to put some of this money she had received from her mother to a worthy cause.
A string of messages and missed calls greeted her when she extracted her phone from her pocket to make the necessary arrangements. All were from Louie. Ignoring those, Karin gave Mel a quick ring instead.
‘Mel, has Will come back to the house? He’s not shown up for work yet.’
Mel said he hadn’t, but offered to check his room just in case. He wasn’t in there either. As she was working from home today, Mel promised to let her know if he appeared.
When a message came pinging through, minutes later, Karin hoped it might be Mel to say that she had seen him.
But it was Louie:
Karin deleted it. There were far more pressing things to worry about right now.
There was very little she could do about Will for the time being. His refusal to have a mobile phone, despite offering to buy him one, meant that no one could reach him. And with their big launch only around the corner, Karin couldn’t afford to go chasing across Leeds to find him. She just had to hope that he would emerge at some point, which, knowing Will, he more than likely would.
He didn’t.
By six o’clock Karin had had enough. Her back ached from a day of pulling up weeds and chopping down overgrown shrubs. She packed up her things and promised to return tomorrow morning. Walking home via Woodhouse Ridge, a woodland shortcut that was once an Edwardian park, she wondered what she should do if Will wasn’t back at the house. She had asked a few people working on the project if they had seen him, made a few calls, but no one had. At what point was a homeless man – and technically he still was until next week – a missing person?
Despite feeling like she was being watched, her mind was still distracted. She didn’t notice the cyclist shooting past, bouncing her into the wall. The brightly-coloured graffiti sprayed along the old stonework was also a reminder that the beat and throb of the city was never far away. For all the beauty of the Ridge, it paid to stay alert at any time of day and to avoid the area at night. Karin continued on her way, quickening her pace due to a growing unease. Once or twice, a movement in the dense shrubbery caused her to turn, the sound of branches snapping, but as soon as silence was restored she was back in the tangle of her thoughts once more.
A tap on the shoulder soon pulled her out of them again.
She yelped, turning round quickly.
‘Will! Thank goodness, where have you been?’ She signed the words, as well as saying them, resisting the urge to throw her arms around him. There were boundaries not to be crossed these days. Even though Will was a good friend, he was part of her professional life now and for both their sakes it was better not to show any favouritism or affection, at least not in public. The Ridge was quiet, but there were always people about, hidden by trees in the maze of upper and lower paths.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
Clearly he wasn’t. He seemed agitated, more than she had ever known him to be.
Will signed something back to her. It came across as angry. ‘I’m leaving,’ he said.
‘What?’ She thought she hadn’t understood properly. Karin still wasn’t completely fluent in sign language but she could usually get the gist. ‘Did you really say leaving?’ She noticed his rucksack and the sleeping bag attached to it, dangling by its cord.
‘I wanted to say goodbye first, and to thank you for all you’ve done for me, Karin. You are a good person.’
‘But why? Your home is here, it’s almost finished. You can move in next week.’
‘Give my room to someone else.’
‘Will, I’m really struggling with this. You’ve worked tirelessly these past weeks. How can you throw all that away?’ Karin let out a despairing sigh. Will was one of the reasons she hadn’t given up on this project when things weren’t going to plan. He was always there, offering words of encouragement, making other members of the team work as hard as he was prepared to do. Do it for Karin, he would say. And then she would have to remind him that it was for himself. They were doing it for themselves, all of them. Helping each other.
Will started to sign again. ‘It’s time to move on. You’re getting married.’
‘Yes, but I’m not going anywhere. I’ll still be in Leeds and working for the charity. Come on, Will. We’re a good team, you and me.’
There was no denying it would be a challenge for someone like Will to live in a communal environment, but they had been over this many times. Karin knew this wasn’t the issue now.
‘It’s Mel, isn’t it?’
He gave her one of his looks, reaching into her thoughts, rifling through them. She was used to it, others found it unnerving. Will thrust his hands into the pockets of his overcoat; too warm for this weather really. Karin had bought it for him second-hand as a gift when she first started working properly for the charity. She noticed, though, that his pockets were weighed down for a life on the move. Will extracted a book, clearly looking for something else. Karin noticed a bottle and pulled it out.
‘You’re drinking again?’
Will snatched it from her, but in his frustration he put it back into his other pocket, clanking it against another bottle.
Karin removed them both, holding one in each hand. ‘Why, Will?’
Finally he found what he was looking for and held up a set of keys. Karin recognized them as the ones to their house in Headingley. They jingled together in a happy dance, as a dog might wag its tail to cheer up a sad owner. She returned the bottles of cheap whisky to his pockets and accepted the keys with painful reluctance, staring down at them in her palm. She nudged her thumb over the rainbow keyring that she had attached, so they wouldn’t get mixed up with her own set or with Mel’s. Karin could feel tears burning her eyes, doing her best to hold them back.
Will flicked his elbow in the air, hooking the strap of his rucksack over the other shoulder. ‘Goodbye, Karin,’ he said, and took off towards town, taking the lower path.
‘Will.’
She caught up, running in front of him so she could sign. He didn’t make any effort to stop and Karin had to put her hands up to prevent him from going any further. He slammed into her hands deliberately. There was so much anger behind his eyes.
‘Mel told me what happened about the jewellery. I knew you weren’t stealing it, Will. I mean, you wouldn’t do that, would you?’
He looked down, kicking at the dried-out soil on the path.
‘If you have to ask me that,’ he signed, ‘then I really don’t belong here.’
‘No. No, wait. I explained to Mel it was probably just some mix-up and— what’s that?’
Will was unfolding a piece of paper. It looked vaguely familiar.
‘NO HOME FOR YOU HERE. LOSER.’
‘Oh God. She’s got to you too then,’ said Karin, inspecting it more closely.
Will didn’t give her time to explain. He snatched the note back and set off, forcing Karin to run in front of him once more to slow him down. ‘Wait,’ she shouted, putting her hand up again to make him stop. ‘It’s Louie who sent that note. She sent one to me this morning.’ Will looked confused, then Karin remembered he wasn’t up to speed. ‘Sorry. I didn’t tell you everything about the weekend and – and maybe I should have. But Aaron took us to The Midland hotel – he thought it would be a special birthday treat – and I bumped into Lou again.’
As she was saying the words she felt Will picking up on her embarrassment. He always knew when she was hiding something, which made it even worse. ‘I think she might be in Leeds,’ she continued. ‘She has an art exhibition here on Thursday. I know exactly what she’s up to, Will. She wants to isolate me, get rid of the people I’m close to, stop me having friends.’
The way Will was looking at her, Karin knew she wouldn’t be able to prevent him from leaving. And maybe he had been her protector for long enough. After all, he was free to live his life the way he wanted, and if he didn’t require any more of her help, then that was his choice.
Karin extracted a wad of money from her dungarees. It was intended for one of the contractors at Ashby Road, but she could easily get some more. She pushed the roll of notes towards Will.
‘Two hundred pounds. Take it. We couldn’t have got to this stage without all your hard work. At least accept this.’
Will rolled an elastic band down his wrist and put it round the bundle of notes, stuffing it into his jeans pocket.
‘And you deserve way more than that,’ she added, ‘but it’s all the cash I have on me.’
Will threw his arms out to the side and took a step back, signing something else. ‘It’s enough, Karin,’ he said. ‘You need to watch your back.’
He was on the verge of leaving again but when he saw Karin’s fingers fumbling to remove the rainbow keyring, he waited for her to take it off.
‘For luck,’ she said. ‘And friendship.’
‘Thank you.’
Will pushed it through the hole in the bundle of notes she had just given him, then returned it to his pocket, doing a half-circle around Karin, staring in that way of his as if to say this really was it.
He didn’t look back.
She wanted to cry as Will became smaller, obscured by the green wilderness of Woodhouse Ridge until the bend in the path took him out of sight completely. It was too final. Karin couldn’t bear to be parted from him. In a world where their only choices were either to survive or give in, the two of them had stuck together in the hope that something better would come along. She always assured Will that things would improve if she could make it to her twenty-second birthday. In the end they didn’t have to wait that long because Mel had come to her rescue long before that.
They had both been thrown a lifeline. So why was he prepared to throw it back again? After all they had been through. Sitting on pavements side by side, they knew the rhythm of each other’s heartbeat, the length of the other’s breath while one slept and the other kept guard.
And yet.
She had to let him go.
Retracing her steps back up onto the path which led home, Karin left a tearful voicemail for Aaron. And then turned back again, racing down the path to Will.
She was completely out of breath by the time she caught up with him.
‘I’m so sorry, Will. I just wanted to ask you—’ Karin signed as best she could, realizing he might struggle to lip-read with her panting so heavily. ‘It’s really – well, I’d be grateful if you didn’t go to the police about the note. I mean, I know it’s unlikely and everything. But – well, you know why.’
The intensity of his stare made her shrivel all the way to the ground. Will deserved better than this.
‘They won’t listen to a homeless person anyway,’ he replied.
‘Oh. But. Do you mind if I have it? I mean it’s only to compare it with the one I got this morning. It’s not because I don’t trust you or anything.’ Her voice faded into a trail of shame.
Will certainly deserved better than this.
He handed the note over and she bit hard into her lip, avoiding his gaze. The gentle sway of the trees, the thin clouds tearing themselves apart in the sky, and even the faint buzz of traffic on Meanwood Road, all were saying that her secrets were safe with Will, so why had she had doubted him twice in the space of ten minutes? First the jewellery and now this.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I know everything, Karin.’
‘What?’
Her insides turned cold at that phrase.
Will was already walking away.