Page 17 of The Next Chapter

Tap tap tap

Tap tap tap

‘Lily, there’s a Viking here for you.’

I wake up with a start to Seb’s voice on the other side of the bedroom door and attempt to launch myself out of bed. I hate the feeling of being asleep when I should be awake. My stomach rolls, whether from the booze or the misery or the feeling that I’ve overslept, I don’t know.

Why does this keep happening here?

The process of launching doesn’t quite go to plan. Mainly because I was face down horizontal on the bed and so all I manage is to roll myself up in the duvet and knock the bedside lamp off the little table with my foot.

‘What the fuck are you doing in there?’ Seb sounds rough.

Last night comes back to me in horrifying increments.

Thinking about Noah and wondering whether people who herald from Skye are extra horny.

Googling Lola.

Laughing loudly, really loudly, at Gossip Girl .

Seb coming back and saying that Lola had avoided him all evening.

Announcing that Lola didn’t love me.

I think there was weeping after that. So much weeping.

Seb whacks the bedroom door.

‘Lily? What should I do about the Viking?’

I scramble around, pulling on clothes, and push past Seb. ‘Morning!’ I pull open the patio doors to find Noah on the other side of them looking as calm and collected as an FBI agent. I hold up one finger.

‘Just give me a few minutes and I’ll be ready for alllll the hiking.’ I aim for chirpy and come off deranged.

A pause. The guy looks fresh as a daisy. And he’s smirking a tiny bit. It’s disarmingly sexy.

‘Are you sure?’ Another smirk.

‘Just give me a minute,’ I say through a gritted smile.

‘Do you want to come and get me, when you’re ready?’ he asks. ‘I’ll wait in my cottage.’

I only have my head poked out through the door.

‘Perfect, won’t be two ticks.’

I shut the door in his face before he has chance to reply, rounding on Seb.

‘Why did you let me have so much wine?!’ I ask him.

‘It was you.’ He’s rubbing his forehead with his hands. ‘It was all the crying you were doing. Just tell him you can’t go.’

‘You’re the one who kept telling me to climb him last night! No, I’m going. I’m going to ask him about Lola. It took us eight hours to get here. This trip cannot be a waste of time!’

Hangovers make me prone to hysteria.

But I’m determined. I will hike up that mountain this morning if it kills me.

I throw back two paracetamol and glug water like I’ve been trekking through the desert for days and just happened upon a watering hole.

I gather up my walking gear. Some sick comes up when I bend to pull fresh socks out of my suitcase and I have to pause a second, one hand on the edge of the bed until it passes.

I make my way to the bathroom and chew on my toothbrush.

As per my rota, technically, it’s hair wash day. I in no way have the strength for that, so I just go overboard with the dry shampoo. I’m basically held together by the stuff when I emerge back into the living area.

Seb has laid down again. ‘Don’t hurry back,’ he mutters as I pass.

I’ve taken max five minutes to get sorted, but I feel awful for being late for my hike with Noah as I knock on the door to his cottage.

‘Good morning,’ he says, brightly. ‘How’s the head?’

Noah must have some dark tendencies, because he’s clearly enjoying this. He’s happy that I’m suffering.

I open my mouth, hopefully to bring him down a peg or two with some quick wit, or else to puke on him, I can’t quite be sure.

‘We missed you at karaoke.’ He smiles, stepping aside so I can follow him into his cottage. ‘Seb was pretty into it.’

‘Wait, what exactly did he sing?’ I ask.

‘Just a couple of Queen songs,’ he says. ‘It was good fun.’

‘It’s Freddie Mercury,’ I rush out. ‘He gets really emotional at “Rocket Ship”.’

‘Yeah, there was some crying.’

Noah smiles again and moves further into his cottage.

I follow him, realizing that it’s almost identical to ours. He doesn’t have a sofa bed taking up most of the living space, though, so it’s all very neat. There’s a small pile of notebooks with Post-it note tabs on his glass coffee table. They look like they might be colour coded. Well, that’s hot.

‘Do you write by hand?’ I ask him, eyeing the notebooks, hovering just inside his doorway.

‘Initially, yeah,’ he tells me. ‘It’s just easier than carrying a laptop or whatever all the time. Plus, I like notebooks.’

‘Oh my god, me too. They have a stationery expo in Manchester every year. I’m pretty sure that’s what heaven looks like.’

‘I’ll have to check it out. Do you want a coffee before we go? There’s still some in the pot.’

Stationery and coffee. At this point it’s a miracle that I don’t just turn into that meme which says, ‘and then she was pregnant’.

‘Please.’ It comes out like a beg.

I scuttle across to the coffee, taking up his offer of a cup and then, when he nudges a jug of milk and a bag of sugar towards me, I think sod it, adding a ton of milk and way too much sugar.

This weekend has already thrown all my carefully laid nutritional plans out of the window.

I’ll be able to get back to my nice, ordered existence once I leave.

I drink the coffee like it’s the elixir of life and then pour another cup.

I’m halfway through draining it when I remember that Noah’s impression of me won’t be helped by my having to go for a nature wee up the side of a mountain.

With regret, I pour away the last half.

‘Oooh, is that more of your books!’ I notice a couple of paperbacks stacked against the other side of the kitchen countertops. There’s a picture of a snow-capped mountain on the one at the front.

Noah groans. ‘I should have hidden them. But yeah, they’re mine.’

‘Wow, that’s seriously cool. Can I have a look?’

‘If you want.’

I ignore his attempts to be self-deprecating. There’s no getting that past me, I’m the master of it.

This one is called, Discovering New Zealand .

‘How long were you in New Zealand for?’ I ask.

‘A year in the end. I got stuck there through the pandemic.’

‘Shit, no way!’

He lifts his shoulders. ‘There are worse places to be stranded.’

I think of New Zealand on a map, floating all alone in the middle of the vast ocean. Plus, aren’t there like a ton of volcanoes there? I can think of better places, I won’t lie.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I smile at what I see, putting the book down but thinking that as soon as I’m back later, I am downloading that bad boy.

‘Good news?’ Noah asks.

I show Noah the picture from Mr Cains. It’s of Elton out for his morning walk.

‘Is it normal to walk a cat?’ Noah asks after a pause.

I heart the message. ‘He has a special lead. Elton has a problem with his thyroid that makes him prone to weight gain.’ I repeat what the vet had said to me.

They’d seemed really sad about Elton and his thyroid problem.

And then they’d handed over a bill for ￡800.

‘He hardly ever lets me walk him, though,’ I tell Noah.

‘He hates the leash. But he has to wear it because he’s a bit deaf – if he runs off, he’s a total goner. ’

I can tell that Noah is thinking that with all his health problems, it is probably no bad thing that poor old Elton might not be around much longer, but at least he doesn’t say so.

I notice, unhelpfully, that I have eighteen unread WhatsApps.

Always so many. Now generally, I pride myself on being a fastidious replier.

Need some dates for when we can meet up?

Just give me two ticks and I’ll send you ten.

Want paying for the joint new baby present we’re buying, I’m all over it.

Normally, I get a real thrill from being so good at friendships like that.

But now, I just feel drained. Like there’s nothing left.

And the ten pictures from the hen do I missed are liable to make me feel more guilty than anything else.

I vow to set aside time this afternoon for replying. I can’t let my entire life go to shit just because of one incognito mini-break to visit the woman who birthed me.

‘Are you ready?’ I ask Noah, thinking that it’s now or never.

‘I’ve been awake for two hours, I feel pretty strong,’ he says smugly, stretching his arms out over his head and revealing a few inches of tanned stomach as his T-shirt rides up.

Not today, Satan.

‘Come on then, let’s go,’ I say with far more enthusiasm than I feel.

I’ve done extreme sporting challenges, I did that marathon yoga thing.

I know it’s about your mindset more than anything.

With the right mindset, you can do more than you ever thought you could.

There is still time to turn this weekend around.

Maybe Noah will tell me something about Lola that doesn’t make my heart hurt. I can do this.

There is grass everywhere.

I know what you’re thinking. It’s a mountain, of course there’s grass.

Grass is a fairly innocuous part of the natural world.

But see, it’s not just any grass, it’s not regular grass, it’s super long spindly grass that keeps wrapping itself around my feet and making me trip over.

I read once how long grass is the preferred environment of the tick.

Harbinger of Lyme’s Disease. So not only is this long grass really annoying, it’s also potentially dangerous.

Noah asked whether I was okay to take the ‘adventurous route’ up the mountain, which he described as much quicker.

Quicker sounded good but it doesn’t seem to involve a path.

No, we’d gone straight past the nice, winding path that weaved up the side of the mountain.

Instead, we’re basically crawling up the face of it.