Saturday was a warm, soft, spring day and practically as soon as the bus left Peterborough I became mesmerised by the landscape. Parts of Puglia were flat, but nothing like the Fens. The vast fields stretched all the way to the horizon, occasionally interrupted by a distant copse, or boundary defining ditch, but beyond that there appeared to be nothing. Or there was nothing until we reached the outskirts of Wynbridge. Then the orchards began.
Acre upon acre of rows of flat-topped trees, many laden with frothy bursting blossom, were planted along both sides of the road, just as I had seen on Google. My heart soared at the sight and I wondered if there would be as much of a spectacle waiting to welcome me to Fenview Farm. I hoped the discarded orchards I had seen online didn’t belong to the place. That really would be too sad.
But more to the point, would there be a welcome for me at Fenview Farm? For the first time since I had decided to come, I felt a real rush of nerves. It was more intense than what I had felt the night before and it stamped all over practically every other emotion I had recently experienced. I began to feel nauseous.
Was I making a mistake? Why did Mum think that me coming here was so important when she herself had left almost thirty years ago without a backwards glance? She had written that I would be a better fit for the place, but were she and I really so different?
‘This is as far as I go,’ said the bus driver, as he twisted round to look at me from his seat and pulled me out of my reverie. ‘Are you getting off or going back?’
He didn’t know it of course, but that was actually a huge question.
‘Getting off,’ I said, grabbing my bags and rushing along the aisle and down the steps before I bolted back to Peterborough.
‘Town square’s that way,’ he called after me, pointing along the road.
Clearly, I didn’t look like someone who knew where they were going.
‘Will I be able to find a taxi there?’
‘Shouldn’t be a problem,’ he said, before closing the doors and swinging the bus round to face the way we’d just come.
I hoisted my pack on to my back and headed in the direction he had indicated. The little town looked lovely in the sunshine, almost idyllic. There was a busy market in the centre of the square and an interesting variety of shops around the edges. There was a pretty café set behind a cherry tree, with some sort of gallery next door, and a pub with an impressive array of spring flowering containers.
The friendly chatter and busyness reminded me of where I shopped in Italy and I tried to marry my initial impression of the place with a vision of Mum. This must have been where she visited and hung out when she was growing up, but I couldn’t picture her anywhere. ‘Work hard, play hard’ was the ethos she had lived by. The second she’d earned enough in the country she was off to the bright lights and big cities to spend it and immerse herself in new experiences, but there didn’t look to be those sorts of opportunities here.
Wynbridge looked too restrained for her taste, altogether too small, but I was charmed. That said, the town was no doubt a very different place all those years ago, and Mum a different person. Perhaps it had satisfied her until she fell pregnant with me and her life had inevitably changed.
‘Can you take me to Fenview Farm, please?’ I asked the only cab driver who was parked in a bay marked out for taxis.
‘Do you have a postcode?’
I couldn’t place his accent.
‘Yes,’ I said, pulling a scrap of paper out of my jeans pocket and handing it over. ‘It’s on Lady’s Drove, if that’s any help.’
‘Yes,’ he said, as I stuffed my bags into the back of the car. ‘I know that road. It’s the fruit farm you want.’
The journey only took a few minutes but in that time my heart started to canter again and as we came to a stop and I took in more of the landmark orchards, I thought it was going to make a bid for freedom and burst right out of my chest.
‘This is it,’ said the driver. ‘That’s four pounds, please.’
‘Keep the change,’ I said, the words sticking in my throat as I handed him a five-pound note.
‘Thanks. Do you need a receipt?’
‘No. No, thank you.’
I took in the peeling farm sign which was leaning drunkenly towards the road. This didn’t look like the Fenview Farm that I had spent the long watches of the previous night building up in my mind. I wondered if the rosy-cheeked Nonna and big-hearted Nonno I had imagined were going to be missing too. There was a small red car parked in the yard, so clearly someone was home.
The taxi driver cleared his throat, making me jump.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ll get out.’
I still didn’t move.
‘Do you need a hand?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s all right. I can manage.’
I had barely closed the door before he pulled away, leaving me in a cloud of dust. I watched until he was out of sight, then took a tentative step into the yard.
‘Eliot!’ shouted a voice from the house. ‘Is that you? You’ve taken your time, haven’t you?’
The voice didn’t sound old enough to belong to my grandmother and obviously I had no idea who Eliot was, so I felt on the back foot even before I’d knocked on the door.
‘Come on!’ called the voice again. ‘Hurry up. I have to go.’
I took a deep breath, walked briskly to the open door and knocked loudly on the frame in the hope that whoever was inside would
