Page 24 of The Next Chapter

In the living area there’s a couch and a TV unit with some DVDs stacked underneath. There’s a side table with a lamp and a welcome note on it and at one end of the room, facing the back of the cottage, there’s a small kitchenette. It’s only a single row of units with an under-the-counter fridge, but there’s everything we’ll need here.

I’m pretty sure there’s a load of craft type people living on the Isle of Skye. I read about it. How it’s a centre for that sort of thing. But all Lola’s furniture looks like it came from IKEA. I’m not against IKEA, obviously their meatballs are excellent. It’s just that IKEA doesn’t exactly scream rich and famous, does it?

‘I’ll get your bags, don’t worry,’ Seb complains to himself, dragging my stuff in from outside. ‘I’m your fake twin not your slave.’

He’s busy piling my luggage down by the end of the couch so I walk into the other rooms. There’s a compact bathroom and a bedroom with a double bed and a single set of drawers. Someone has put some red tulips in a jug on top of them. The walls are all the same – exposed stone painted white – and the floors are wood. There’s a window that looks across to Noah’s cottage. That’s probably his bedroom right there.

The cottage is quiet. Decrepit or not, if I were here on a genuine mini-break, it’s the sort of place I might come to feel relaxed in. If I was a person who knew how to relax, that is.

I walk back into the living area. Seb has pulled the couch out into a sofa bed. It almost fills the place, the end knocking against the rickety TV unit. He’s been forced to move the glass coffee table practically into the kitchen.

‘Everyone is super-hot here,’ he says.

I ignore him.

‘I’ll take the couch,’ he says. ‘You know I can sleep anywhere.’

There is tacit implication in that statement that I, on the other hand, could not sleep anywhere. I eye my hypoallergenic pillow, wondering if this weekend is already going to be stressful enough without adding in trying to sleep on a lumpy sofa bed.

‘Okay, if you’re sure.’

‘I’m sure.’ He peers over at my cool bag. ‘Do you have anything other than seaweed thins in there?’

‘Yep.’ I smile, loving the fact that I’m being useful and prepared right now. ‘I brought some breadsticks and dips and stuff.’

‘Tell me there’s wine.’

‘Of course.’

‘Perfect. I’m going for a cigarette.’

Seb slides back out of the double doors and I’m suddenly alone. I don’t know how I feel about being alone right now. I move, taking my special pillow to the bedroom, eyeing up the note that Lola has left on the drawers.

* * *

Lily and Seb! Welcome to Broadford. I hope you have a lovely stay. Lola x

* * *

It’s probably something she does for everyone staying in the hotel. But it just makes me think, she can obviously wield a pen, so why didn’t she write to me these past few decades? She’s nicer to her hotel guests than she is to her own daughter.

And suddenly, it’s all too much.

I slip out of the double doors and into the rapidly advancing evening. ‘Just going to check out the woods,’ I call to Seb where he’s off at the edge of the cottage gardens. Thankfully, Noah is nowhere to be seen.

I don’t give Seb chance to reply, I just march behind the cottage and into the tree line, stomping my way through the leaves and grass of the forest floor. Once I think I’m far enough away from the cottage, I look up at the tree canopy. It’s darker in here still, cooler. My eyes fill with tears. Whether they’re for myself, for Lola or the fact that this would all be so much easier if Mum and Dad were still here, I don’t know.

I just stand there, then, my face still tipped up and cry. For Mum, for Dad. For me and how wrong I seem to have been about Lola all these years. I’m throwing myself the mother of all pity parties and I don’t care, because it feels good to let it out.

There’s a whisper of a breeze and I feel it across the wet streaks down my cheeks.

But I don’t stop. I cry these great heaving sobs that make it hard to breathe in.

It’s cathartic. Hopefully it’s cathartic.

It’s not stopping. It’s causing havoc with my eye make-up, but it’s still going strong.

Hopefully, it’ll stop soon.