Izzy was barely holding it together, but when the huge bouquet of flowers and care package arrived at the hospice addressed to her and her grandparents, sent by the team at the midwifery unit, she finally fell apart. There was something for everyone and they’d even put in a big box of her grandfather’s beloved rum and raisin fudge. There was also a memory jar, which had little cards they could write messages on, and the instant Nonna had found out about it, she’d begun reeling off things that she wanted to go into the jar.
Even though she was increasingly tired, the memory jar had given her grandmother a boost Izzy hadn’t seen since the blessing. She’d recalled things from Izzy’s childhood, including the first word she’d spoken, which had apparently been ‘tate-toe’, which she’d uttered shortly before attempting to take a large bite out of a raw potato. They were things Izzy had never thought to ask and which would probably have been lost forever if it wasn’t for the jar.
It was bittersweet that the other midwives could be so thoughtful when she hadn’t opened up to them in anything like the way she had to Noah.
When she was back at work, she was determined to make an effort to be the person she wanted to be and not the one her mother had turned her into. Just because Noah had proved that letting herself start to love someone new was a huge risk, it didn’t mean that friendships had to go the same way. Although she still couldn’t imagine ever letting someone get really close to her in the way he had.
As much as it was a joy to see Nonna wanting to squeeze every last drop out of life by reliving the best bits of it with Izzy and Pops, the request she made two days after she got the jar knocked Izzy for six.
‘I want to go to church.’ There was a determination in Nonna’s voice that Izzy recognised and it was one you didn’t attempt to argue with.
‘We can get a vicar to come here to talk to you. They’ve got the multi-denominational chapel you can go to on the other side of the building too.’ Izzy had explained Noah’s absence away for the last two days by saying he’d gone to see his mother. Pops had told Nonna about the article in the paper too, so they knew he was going through a tough time. What they didn’t know was that he had no intention of coming back and she didn’t want her grandmother to find out.
‘I want to go to St Jude’s.’ Nonna fixed her with a look.
‘Noah still isn’t back.’
‘That’s a shame, but it’s the church I really need to visit. There’s something I feel there that I don’t feel anywhere else and I want to have that one more time before I go.’ Nonna made it sound as if all she was doing was going back to Redruth.
‘The nurses might not allow it.’ Izzy looked at her grandfather for some back-up, but he shrugged.
‘If it’s what your grandmother wants, we’ll persuade the nurses if we have to. We did it once and we can do it again.’ Pops obviously wasn’t going to talk any sense into Nonna. ‘Maybe Noah could call them? He did a great job of persuading Dr Chandler last time.’
‘I don’t want to interrupt him while he’s with his mum.’ Izzy hated the fact that what had happened with Noah meant she needed to lie to her grandparents again.
‘I imagine they’re having some pretty tough conversations.’ Pops sighed and took hold of his wife’s hand. ‘But even without Noah, I’ll get you to St Jude’s again somehow, my darling. I promise.’
Izzy bit her lip. This was going to happen whether she liked it or not, because – unlike Noah – Pops never broke a promise.
The nurses hadn’t needed any strong-arm tactics to let Nonna go to the church, but getting her there was still like a military operation. The plan was for her to be out of the hospice for less than two hours in total but transferring her in and out of the wheelchair for the car journey was more difficult than they’d expected. She couldn’t support her own weight for any length of time and two lovely nurses had needed to help lift her into the car when she’d left the hospice. Once they got to the church it had been down to Izzy and Pops to do it. The problem wasn’t really lifting her – she’d lost so much weight – but it was the fear of accidentally hurting her that made it so hard.
When they eventually managed the transition, pushing the wheelchair up the uneven flagstone pathway was relatively simple. It wasn’t until the moment they reached the door that a horrible realisation struck Izzy. There was no guarantee the church would even be open. Izzy stepped forward and offered up a silent prayer as she pushed against the old oak door, which thankfully swung open. There were no steps down into the church and so the last stage of getting Nonna where she wanted to be was easy.
‘Oh! I wasn’t expecting to see anyone here today.’ James suddenly appeared from the vestry. ‘But you’re most welcome.’
‘Thank you.’ Izzy hadn’t seen James since Gracie’s funeral and for a moment or two he didn’t seem to register that it was her.
‘Oh my goodness, Izzy, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise it was you. I really should get some new glasses!’ James marched down the aisle towards her and pulled her into a hug. ‘Everyone is welcome at St Jude’s, but none more so than you and your family.’
‘It’s good to see you, James.’ It really was, especially as he looked so well. She knew from Nicole and Noah that the fundraising for Gracie’s Place had made lots of progress, and that over a hundred people had signed up for the fun run that the charity was organising.
‘It’s good to see you both again too. I’m looking after the church while Noah is away.’ James hugged Nonna and Pops too and he had that rare gift of not making it seem awkward to hug people he didn’t know that well. Maybe Noah had been right all along about him being better-suited to taking over at St Jude’s, but the last Izzy had heard, James had been thinking of putting his training on hold. ‘How are you doing, Eileen?’
‘I wanted to come to the church one last time. There’s something about this place, isn’t there?’ Nonna looked up at him and they exchanged a knowing smile.
‘There certainly is.’ James had such a gentle tone. ‘Would you like me to pray with you, or would you rather just have some time for quiet contemplation?’
‘I think I’d just like some time to sit and think.’ Nonna was clearly struggling and having to pause after each sentence. ‘I told Noah that it was coming here that helped me… to get my head around knowing that I won’t be here forever. The peace in St Jude’s is part of what makes it so special.’
‘Absolutely. I’ll leave you to it, but I know Noah will be sorry that he wasn’t able to be here. God bless you Eileen and your lovely family.’ James smiled and turned towards the church doors.
‘I’m going to leave you to it as well, Nonna, just you and Pops. I’ll be outside when you’re ready.’ Izzy touched her grandmother’s shoulder.
‘Thank you, sweetheart.’ With Nonna’s okay, Izzy followed James out into the sunlight, which seemed suddenly much brighter than it had moments before. She couldn’t stop herself from going after him. She needed to know what Noah had told him and whether James had heard anything since he’d left. It wouldn’t change what had happened, but she couldn’t even pretend to herself that she didn’t want to know how he was.
‘James, wait!’ He was already by the open gate at the end of the path when she called out to him.
‘Oh Izzy, this must be so hard for you. I really am sorry about your grandmother and I hope she gets some comfort from being here. It’s helped me no end since we lost Gracie.’
‘Thank you, I hope so too. How’s Nicole?’ Asking about Noah might be at the forefront of her mind, but she genuinely wanted to know how Nicole was doing too. Taking a leave of absence from work meant she hadn’t been going to the infertility support group either, and she had no idea whether Nicole had been back again. Guilt at not being there for her patients was definitely mixed in with the whirl of emotions that sometimes threatened to overwhelm Izzy, and it would be a relief to know that Nicole was doing okay.
‘She’s decided she wants to go ahead with another round of IVF, but she wouldn’t let me drop out of my training for the church, so it’s going to take quite a long time to save up.’ James gave Izzy a half smile. ‘She’s determined, though, and she’s taken on extra hours at work. So with me covering at St Jude’s, we’re like two ships passing in the night a lot of the time.’
‘That must be tough and it’s a shame Noah couldn’t put you first, instead of just running away.’ Izzy rubbed her temples; her head seemed to be pounding all the time lately. Giving in to a really good cry would probably have done her some good, but she had to hold it together for Nonna and Pops. Her grandmother had been so stoic about her prognosis and the last thing she needed was for Izzy to be hysterical about the prospect of losing her.
‘He didn’t run away; he was hounded out.’ James had an unusually firm tone. ‘The number of calls I’ve taken up at the vicarage from journalists since he went away is insane.’
‘What did you tell them about where he is?’
‘I said that I was covering because he’s ill.’
‘So you lied for him?’ Izzy raised her eyebrows, but James was shaking his head.
‘No, this is making him ill.’
‘I know it hasn’t been easy but running away never solves anything. My mother has done it for years and her life is a total mess. I thought Noah had a bit more backbone than that and he promised he’d be there for my grandmother.’
‘He wouldn’t have left if they hadn’t threatened to track you down. He was trying to protect you.’ James must have seen the look that crossed her face. ‘You didn’t know? One of them even followed him to the hospice. He thought that going to stay with his mother in Scotland would help the story fizzle out, but even if it didn’t and they found him up there, it would mean they’d leave you alone.’ Izzy was trying to process what he’d said and a frisson of guilt bubbled inside her. When he’d been trying to explain, she’d all but shouted him down, lashing out because she’d hated feeling so vulnerable. But she couldn’t have been that wrong about him and there was still a big part of Izzy that thought Noah would say whatever was needed to give him the excuse to run away.
‘Why didn’t he just tell me that was the reason?’
‘Because, however you’re feeling about him at the moment, Noah really cares for you and your grandparents. He didn’t want to do anything to put you under any more pressure than you already are. Would you have told him to stay and take the risk that you, or even your grandfather, might get approached by the sort of journalists willing to follow someone to a hospice, just to get a story?’
‘Do you really believe all of that?’ Izzy couldn’t let herself believe it, because if it was true, it would mean Noah was nothing like her mother and that she’d pushed him out of her life for no reason, throwing away something that had meant so much to her. She’d been lied to enough over the years to know that someone could look you in the face and swear that they were telling the truth, while all the time lying their backside off.
‘If you spent a couple of hours in the vicarage dealing with the calls, you’d know it was true.’
‘I’ve got to get back to my grandparents.’ Izzy didn’t want to give even an inch of space in her head to believing it. She’d already made the mistake of lowering her defences once. ‘Give my love to Nicole.’
‘I will and you know where we are if you need either of us, Izzy. Whatever happens, we’ll never forget what you did for us.’ James hugged her again and for a split second she thought about asking him to speak to Noah for her, to ask him to tell her himself what James had told her. But it was too late. ‘Take care.’
‘You too.’ She pulled away from James and headed back to the church. Nonna was all that mattered now and even if she’d made the biggest mistake of her life in not listening to what James had just said, she needed to make the most of every last moment with her grandmother. She couldn’t even bear to think about what would come after.
Staying with his mother and her best friend was like living in a boarding kennel, especially with Pablo in the mix creating merry hell as usual. That made seven dogs in the little two-bed cottage, and Noah had spent the night before with two canine companions sharing the pull-out sofa bed in the front room with him. Izzy’s aunt had offered to take care of Franny before Noah had even decided to leave, so she could bring her to the hospice every time she visited. At least that was one thing he didn’t have to feel guilty about while he was hiding out in St Andrews.
Fiona loved baking almost as much as she loved her four dogs and if you didn’t mind the odd dog hair as a garnish to a jam tart, there was always something freshly baked on the cooling rack in her kitchen. Even if there’d been no risk of a hairy garnish, Noah wouldn’t have been tempted because he had absolutely no appetite at all.
The way he’d left things with Izzy made him feel sick, and not being there for her or her grandparents at the worst time in their lives was like a physical ache in his chest. He couldn’t be the person she needed now, though, and she was better off without him. It was the mantra he’d repeated to himself all through another largely sleepless night, with Pablo snoring gently in his ear and one of his mother’s Labradors doing her best to push him off the sofa bed altogether.
None of that had stopped him wanting to message Izzy. He needed to know if she was okay, but she hadn’t replied to any of the texts he’d sent, so it was time to stop. She had enough on her mind without some guy constantly harassing her with unwanted messages. He knew only too well from the last week or so what that felt like. She’d been so angry when he’d told her he was leaving and he could understand why that put him in the same category as her mother, as far as she was concerned. She thought he was a coward and right now it was hard for him to disagree.
He'd finally drifted off not long before Fiona had woken him up with a cup of tea the colour of gravy and informed him that she was going out to get some bits for breakfast and could he be a poppet and go with his mother to East Sands to take the dogs for their morning walk. Twenty minutes later, he was showered and dressed and ready to leave the house.
‘How many dogs is too many, do you think?’ Noah turned to his mother at the same time as trying not to trip over four of the dogs, whose leads were getting plaited together as they jostled each other on the walk down to the beach.
‘There’s no such thing as too many dogs.’ His mother’s response was emphatic. ‘We can let them off in a minute and there’s nothing like the unbridled joy of a dog running free on the sand. It’s a snapshot of pure happiness.’
‘They really do make you happy, don’t they, Mum?’ On the epic drive up from Port Agnes to St Andrews, a hundred worries had gone through Noah’s mind. One of them being his mother and whether or not she’d been pretending to be okay about what had happened with his father. But after forty-eight hours in her company, he’d decided that she either had Oscar-winning acting skills, or she was absolutely fine with the fact that her husband of thirty-six years was having a baby with his church warden.
‘My garden and my dogs have always made me happiest.’ His mother stopped as they reached the pathway that cut through the grassy slope flanking the beach. ‘I know I haven’t been the best of mothers, but I’ve always loved you more than anything. Even these hairy beasts. I just wasn’t cut out for all of that family stuff really and I’m amazed you’ve turned out as wonderfully as you have, with your father and me for parents.’ She squeezed his arm in a rare display of physical affection. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been a terrible mother.’
‘You haven’t.’ Noah would have hugged her if he’d thought she’d welcome it, but his mother had never been one for that, not even when he was small. The occasional pats on the head back then, a touch on the shoulder, or squeeze of the arm, had been huge for her and he’d treasured every one of them. Deep down, he’d always known she loved him, though. She never failed to provide freshly pressed uniform for school, or his favourite things in his lunch box and he never had to ask for anything twice. If he mentioned something, and it was in his mother’s power to get it for him, she’d do it. She’d driven him all over the country for sporting events too and had sent care packages to him at university. Angela Andrews just didn’t find emotional or physical intimacy easy. All of which meant that having her open up the way she was, was pretty huge. ‘I’ve always known you loved me and that if I needed you, you’d be there. I just wish I could say the same for Dad.’
‘I don’t want you to think all of this is your father’s fault.’ Angela unclipped three of the dogs’ leads and they shot off across the sand, so Noah had to do the same if he didn’t want to be dragged across the beach by the other four.
‘How can you say that, after what he’s done?’
‘Because I wasn’t the wife he needed. I know you don’t want to hear about any of this when it comes to your parents, but it needs to be said.’ She fiddled with the clip of one of the leads, clicking it back and forth, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the ground. ‘But you need to know, so you understand. Your father and I haven’t been physically intimate in over twenty years and even before that… Well, let’s just say, it was never something I enjoyed.’
‘That’s—’ Noah was completely stuck for a response. His parents had never been affectionate with each other, but he’d had no idea that it went so far.
‘It’s difficult for most people to understand and it’s not down to your father. I just don’t get those sort of feelings… you know, sexually.’ This had to be killing his mother, but he could see how important it was for her to try and get him to understand his father’s actions. It was Rodney who was still refusing to take his calls though and, whatever his parents’ relationship had been like, it was his father who’d always been so judgemental of everyone else. That was what made it hard not to judge him just as harshly.
‘He’s spent his whole life preaching to us and making me feel like I was never going to be good enough.’
‘That’s my biggest regret. I should have got out sooner and taken you with me, but I promised till death us do part.’ Angela shook her head. ‘It’s no life waiting for death to free you from something you should never have committed to in the first place. Don’t make the same mistake I did.’
‘By marrying the wrong person?’
‘By marrying at all, unless you’re more certain of the relationship than you’ve ever been of anything.’ His mother took a tennis ball out of her pocket and threw it along the beach, sending the dogs tearing off and flicking wet sand in all directions. ‘I don’t want you to think that any decision you’ve made so far is irreversible, including your role in the church.’
‘Is it that obvious?’ Noah had never thought of his mother as having a huge amount of insight, but he hadn’t given her nearly enough credit.
‘Your father pushed you towards it from the start and I should have stopped that too, but the strange thing is that you’re much more suited to being a minister than he ever was.’
‘Even though I’m not even sure I believe in God some of the time?’
‘Maybe even because of that; it makes you human and able to support others who might be going through a crisis of their own.’ Her words had an echo of Jeremy’s. ‘If you look up the word minister, it means to tend, care, comfort and support. You’re far more equipped to do all those things than your father.’
‘I’ve made so many mistakes and I’m so uncertain about where I’m going.’
‘You don’t need to be perfect, Noah. I know that’s a legacy from your father too, but you are more than enough the way you are.’ Angela briefly touched his shoulder. ‘Whether you decide to stay with the church or do something else, I know you’ll keep trying to comfort and support others. Just don’t think that means you need to be infallible. All any of us can do is our best and I should have tried harder to do mine.’
‘I love you, Mum.’ They were words he’d so rarely exchanged with his mother and he didn’t expect her to reciprocate. The small nod she gave him in response was enough. The conversation they’d just had proved beyond doubt that she loved him too and none of it would have been easy for her. He was so grateful for her honesty and what that had cost her because her words had made him see things more clearly than he had in months, maybe even years. It was a ten-hour drive back to Port Agnes at best, but he already knew he’d be loading up his car as soon as they got back to Fiona’s cottage. Izzy had been right: running away was never the answer. He needed to go back and face things head on, if he had any chance of moving on with his life.