Page 14 of Somewhere Only We Know

There was a loud pop from the kitchen and Kat returned with the bottle of sparkling wine I’d had chilling in the fridge for months.

‘Kat! That’s expensive, I was saving that!’

‘Of course you were,’ she said with a smirk. ‘But in the spirit of being spontaneous, what the hell.’

I laughed. ‘True. Besides, it’s not often I get given three months off.’

It would be the longest time I’d ever spent away from the workplace. In twelve weeks I could circumnavigate the globe if I wanted to. I could almost hear Brontë’s voice cheering me on, telling me to have an adventure.

‘That’s the spirit.’ She poured me another drink with a flourish.

‘Kat.’ I straightened up as an impulse overtook me. Perhaps it was time to do something I’d been putting off. Maybe now was the right time to hear from my daughter again. ‘Will you do something for me?’

‘Anything.’

‘Would you fetch Brontë’s gap-year book? It’s in her room, on the desk.’

Kat took a sip of her fizz. ‘Are you sure?’

My heart rate stepped up a notch. The book was a physical reminder of my failings that night. I’d never even been tempted to look between the covers. But six months had passed since I lost my girl. If she were alive, she’d be on that trip and I’d know all about it.

I nodded. ‘It’s time. I can’t change the past, but I can show an interest now, see what she’d planned to do.’

Without another word, Kat set down her glass and left the room. I listened to her footsteps on the stairs, the creak of the floorboards overhead as she entered Brontë’s bedroom. Sounds I’d heard a thousand times in so many forms over the years: the hesitant tread of a toddler, the skip of a little girl, the stomp of a frustrated teenager, through to the tiptoe of a young woman returning in the early hours from a night out, doing her best not to wake me. Footsteps that I’d never hear again.

Two minutes later, my sister was back, and I pulled myself from the depths of my memories. As she put the book on the coffee table in front of me, a piece of paper fluttered down to the floor.

‘Whoops.’ She retrieved it and handed it to me. ‘Must have been stuck to the back.’

‘It’s a letter from Saatchi,’ I said, scanning the letterhead. It was dated the day after our sushi night. I hadn’t seen it before. ‘She’d asked to delay the start of her job so she could have a gap year. This must be the reply. I wonder what they said.’

Kat leaned across and we read it together.

Dear Brontë,

I’m writing in response to your request to defer the start of your employment. Your trip sounds amazing. You’ve certainly picked out some great locations. With my employer’s head on, this is disappointing, as there’s a project I’d scheduled for you to work on. But with my old hippie-at-heart head on, I applaud you. Travelling gives us a chance to discover the world, experience different cultures, and learn who we are with no one to impress but ourselves. So I will approve your deferral. And I will look forward to hearing how travel has changed you and try not to be too envious.

Bon voyage,

Neville Mortimer

I read it twice, my eyes lingering on the line about learning who you were. Neville might have been writing it for me. Without Brontë to mother, without my team to manage, who was Magnolia Jones, who did she want to be?

I shook my head, ashamed. ‘Even her new boss was more supportive than I was.’

Kat flapped a hand. ‘It was easy for him to say that – it wasn’t his kid. Nice guy though.’

‘She thought they’d approve of her plans,’ I said, remembering how she’d countered my worries with her positive outlook. ‘I’m glad she got to read that letter before she died. Good for her. No doubt she’d have told me all about it the next time we met. So she could have had it all: the time to travel and the job she’d wanted. She was a smart cookie.’

‘A gap year.’ Kat sighed with longing. ‘Can you imagine? Complete freedom, a few clothes stuffed in a backpack, no responsibilities, no one needing you. Why do kids have all the fun? I think mums should get a chance to go. Why isn’t mum’s gap year a thing?’

‘Because I imagine most families would come apart at the seams without Mum there to organise everything. Women are the engine room of the family machine. Usually,’ I added as Kat gave a soft snort.

Our mum hadn’t been like that. It had been up to me to steer us to safety when she landed us in deep water. An event which happened all too often.

‘True,’ she said. ‘Talking of Mum—’

I cut her off immediately. ‘We aren’t.’