‘Are you lost?’ the woman said pointedly, looking from inside the car to the boxes and suitcases strapped to a roof rack that April had nabbed from a Freecycle site. Her suitcases came from there too, with her not wanting to take the monogrammed luggage set she had been given as a wedding present. His and hers. She’d left it next to Duncan’s in the detached garage. Camped out in her late mother’s house. They’d looked so pathetic sitting there together, never to be used again, as they once were on honeymoon, and on their exotic holidays and horrifying business trips he’d dragged her along on.
‘No,’ said April. Yes, I am a bit. I think I’ve made a big mistake. ‘I’m not lost.’
The woman looked again at the worldly belongings strapped to the roof and sighed, a small unsympathetic sigh that made April feel about an inch tall.
‘Well—’ the woman raised her eyebrows again ‘—you look lost. Can I call someone for you? We’re expecting the hotshot new owner at some point today.’
‘I’m the new owner,’ April tried, her voice a faint whisper. ‘I own this place.’
The woman, having caught the gist now, looked at her with wide eyes.
‘You?’ She leaned into the car window, her head floating there like a balloon. ‘You—’ punctuated by a jab of the finger in her direction ‘—actually bought this place?’
April nodded slowly. The woman began to laugh.
‘Pull the other one, love, it’s got bells on.’ She guffawed, her face looming in April’s window like an animal in a safari park now. A camel sprang to mind. Something that could spit at you from ten paces if it saw fit. Yanking her head back out, the woman tapped twice on the top of April’s car and carried on her way, disappearing as quickly as she had appeared.
April was suddenly alone again, wondering what the hell she had gotten herself into. Hotshot new owner? What had the camel … er … the woman heard? April didn’t want to ruffle any feathers here before she had even unpacked so much as a solitary toilet roll. Why did she think April was a hotshot? Oh God. She’d said ‘we’. ‘We have been waiting for the new owner.’ Who were ‘we’? The woman had obviously found her lacking, and once more, April’s eyes turned to her phone, sitting there innocently in her handbag. It looked so normal, but April felt as though the damn thing was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode on her frazzled brain with an influx of messages. Posts on social media of ‘you okay, hon?’ People commenting on her life, strangers and people who didn’t know her well at all. Not the real her, and nothing like the post-divorce her. Emails from old acquaintances. Purchase reminders for occasions she didn’t need to be reminded of at all. Ever. It would all be in there, lurking.
It had been bad enough already, without her sudden departure from everything and everyone. Divorce was a great vehicle for gossip, her mum had told her. Boy, was she right, as ever. April had turned all her notifications off. If she didn’t need to use the damn thing to navigate, she would probably have pitched it into the nearest and deepest river she could find.
Soon, news of her escape would spread around her hometown, and the gossip would start again. She couldn’t have kids, you know. Tried for years, they did. Broke them apart. Still, his new girlfriend seems lovely. Child-bearing hips, that one. Shame about April, though. She never did quite fit in. They chatted on social media as if they were in the hairdresser’s or in the Post Office queue. What was it that Gran used to tell me? Oh yeah. Loose lips sink ships. No wonder I feel like a crap second-hand dinghy with a Hello Kitty plaster holding in my deflated soul.
They’d be feasting soon, beaks sharply stuck in everyone else’s business. Just like the buzzards to return to a carcass in the hope they’d missed a piece of flesh, a strip of soft underbelly to rip from the bones of her failed life. She had failed as a wife, as a—
April stopped that train of thought by grabbing her phone and jabbing the off button hard, till the screen powered down. She didn’t need her map app now, so why would she leave it on to tick away like a telltale heart? She felt instantly better. She was gone, out of their reach. She’d rather thought that being ‘off grid’ would make her feel a tad edgy or a bit hippyish, but instead, she just felt relief. Bone-deep relief. Un-contactable. Freeeeeee! Relief that she wouldn’t have to endure their pitying stares and sympathetic nods, complete with the ‘little rub’. People thought that rubbing your arm or your shoulder was comforting, but it was just a bit too condescending for April. She hated it more than anything. She felt like a simpleton half the time after they had descended on her. What a joy life could be After Duncan. AD. Life after husband.
Zipping up her oversized handbag, she looked once more out of the window at the corner of the world she would now call home. It looked a little like how she felt: neglected, empty, peeling at the corners. Muted against the blue of the sky above. She pulled herself out of the car, her bones popping and cracking as her body unfurled itself. She could feel the shale beneath her feet, her black and white sneakers crunching as she looked around her. The Shady Pines Chalet Park was perched on a beautiful strip of land near Lizard Point, Kynance Cove a short distance away. From the park, April knew from memory that there was a direct walkway to the beach area, for the use of her guests. It had been there for many years and was one of the biggest selling points to her, the thought of waking up and having her
