We were kind to each other. You didn’t like speaking, but I could say the words for you, like you wrote them better for me. We were a good team.
I thought you’d be so happy when I bought that apartment for us. We were safe forever. No more travelling – because I knew you’d had enough; time to settle down and be who we were, together. But it just seemed to make things worse.
And it’s only in the last few days when I’ve sat in the apartment alone, waiting for you to call me, that I’ve understood. I made you feel like a caged tiger who couldn’t escape. I was rude to your friends – male or female – because I was so scared of losing the one person who seemed to love me, apart from Pa and Ma . . .
So, I’ve gone, Sia. Left you alone for a bit, because that’s what I know you want. Because I love you more than anyone in the world, but I think you’ve found someone else to love you and you don’t need me any more . . .
I looked up and saw the flight was boarding. And my tummy turned over, because I had never, ever got on a plane without Sia by my side. She sat in the window seat with me next to her in the middle, because she liked being up in the clouds. I’d always preferred the earth under my feet and she’d give me a pill twenty minutes before the flight took off so I’d fall straight to sleep and wouldn’t be scared.
I fumbled in the front pocket of my rucksack to find my purse where I was sure I’d put the pill before I left the apartment, but it wasn’t there.
I’d just have to do without it, I decided as I continued to search through the muck inside the pocket to find my passport and boarding card. I’d just have to do without a lot of things from now on. My fingers touched on the envelope with Pa Salt’s letter in. I drew it out to find bits of an old jam doughnut attached to it and saw the envelope was now sugar-coated and stained. Typical me, I thought: I couldn’t even keep the most important letter I’d ever been written clean. Dusting the sugar off it, I took out the small black and white photograph and stared at it for the hundredth time.
Well, at least there had once been someone in the world that I’d belonged to properly. And, I comforted myself, at least I had my art, which was the one thing no one could ever take away from me.
I stowed the envelope back in the front pocket, then stood up and hoicked my rucksack onto my back. I followed the human wave slowly towards the departure gate, wondering what on earth I was doing throwing up everything I’d planned. But if I was honest, it wasn’t just Sia who’d found the change so difficult. Even after just a few weeks in London, my feet had become itchy and the wanderlust had started to hit again. I was very bad at staying in one place for more than a few weeks – always had been – and I’d realised I harboured an innate terror of being institutionalised.
You should have thought of that before you enrolled at your art college, you dunce . . .
I liked nothing better than carrying my home on my back and the excitement of not knowing where I’d end up sleeping that night. Being free. And the good news was, I supposed, that this was certainly going to be how I lived from now on.
I thought how weird it was that one of the only two places in the world I had always avoided visiting was where I was headed for now.
Wandering along the concourse and stepping onto the travelator, I glanced at a poster advertising a bank and was mentally deriding the art director for his lack of imagination when I caught a flash of a very familiar face walking past me. My heart almost jumped out of my chest as I turned round and craned my neck to search for him. But he was walking away and I was travelling fast in the other direction.
I began running along the travelator, my rucksack jostling people as I passed them, but in my desperation to get off, I didn’t care. Reaching the end of it, I did a U-turn and continued to run back along the concourse, my breath coming in gasps through shock and the weight of my rucksack. I dodged in and out between the people walking towards me, eventually reaching the entrance to the departure lounge.
My eyes searched desperately through the crowds for another glimpse of him, but as I heard the final call for my flight, I knew it was too late.
Acknowledgements
This project would not have been possible without the kind help of so many people, and I am deeply indebted to them for supporting me in this marathon of a seven-book series.
In the Lake District: many thanks to Anthony Hutton of the Tower Bank Arms, Beatrix Potter’s local pub in Near Sawrey, for his in-depth knowledge of local history and his warm hospitality. Also to Alan Brockbank, who at the age of ninety-five took the time to be interviewed about village life when Beatrix was still alive, and who had us in stitches with his deadpan stories of adventure. Also, to Catherine Pritchard, National Trust house manager at Hill Top Farm, for her expertise on all things Miss Potter. I would have liked nothing more than to include all the whimsical details of Beatrix’s life in these pages, as she kept busy until the day she died: as wife, farmer, writer, illustrator, researcher, preserver of nature, lover of animals, and friend to many.
Thank you to Marcus Tyers, proprietor of St Mary’s Books, Stamford, for his invaluable knowledge on the intricacies of the rare book business, and for advising me on how much Orlando would have spent on that Anna Karenina. (An exorbitant amount!)
I would also like to thank my fantastic PA, Olivia, who bravely climbed the fells of the Lake District alone in the rain to find a monument to Edward VII, which I insisted was there, but wasn’t! And my hard-working editorial and research team of Susan Moss and Ella Micheler, who helped me get to grips with all of Star’s recipes as well as British Sign Language and deaf culture.
My thirty international publishers from around the world – whom I’m honoured to say I now count amongst my friends – particularly Catherine Richards and Jeremy Trevathan at Pan Macmillan UK; Claudia Negele and Georg Reuchlein at Random House Germany; the team at Cappelen Damm Norway: Knut G?rvell, Jorid Mathiassen, Pip Hallen and Marianne Nielsen; Annalisa Lottini and Donatella Minuto at Giunti Editore in Italy; and Sarah Cantin and Judith Curr at Atria in the USA.