The Last Letter from Juliet - Melanie Hudson Page 0,4

lay there and consider that phrase for a moment – ‘it’s time’. Two little words with such a big meaning.

It’s time, Katherine.

How many times had I heard those words?

My father had said them, standing in the kitchen doorway on my wedding day. He’d taken my hand with a wonderful smile and walked me to the car, a happy man. We were followed closely behind by my Aunt Helena, who was frothing my veil and laughing at Mum – who did not approve of the match – and who fussed along behind us, arguing about … I think it was art, but it might have been cheese. And now, twenty years later, the exact same words were used by Gerald, to direct me out of the house. To force me, my insides kicking and screaming for release, to slide into the long black car that waited in the yard – the car that would take us to James’ funeral, the sort of funeral that has the caption ‘But, dear God, why?’ hovering in the air the whole day.

I turned my back on Mickey and ran my arm across the base sheet on the other side of the bed. If only there was still some warmth there. An arm to curl into, a woolly chest to rest my head on. But the sheet was cold, and like everything else in my house in Exeter, retained the deep ingrained memory of centuries of damp.

But if I just lay there and let the day move on without me …

It’s time, time, time, to wake up!

Mickey again.

I stretched. Ridiculous thought. Mickey was right. The day wouldn’t move on, not if I didn’t wind the cogs and drop-kick the sun through the goal posts. I threw my legs out of bed, sat up, patted Mickey, apologised for hitting him on the head and I kissed him on the face. Poor thing. It wasn’t his fault James had been killed, even if he did insist in shouting at me every morning in his overly polite, American way.

It’s time, Katherine.

But that was the thing with travelling alone on a train, there was simply too much time to think. Trains were just one long rolling mass of melancholy, the carriages filled with random, interconnected thoughts. Travel alone on a train with no book to read and an over-thinker can spend an entire journey in the equivalent of that confused state between sleeping and waking.

And then the guard broke my reverie.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will shortly be arriving in Penzance. Penzance is the last station stop. Service terminates at Penzance. All alight at Penzance.

It was pretty obvious I needed to get off.

The train slowed to a final halt at the station and the last of the passengers began to stir. I grabbed my laptop case, put on my winter coat, hat and gloves and trundled to the end of the carriage in the hope that my suitcase would still be there. It was time to step out onto the platform, find Uncle Gerald, and head out into the storm.

Chapter 3

Katherine

A cottage by the sea

I stepped down onto the platform and stood still for a moment, my eyes searching through a river of passengers, before catching sight of Uncle Gerald, who was waving his multi-coloured umbrella like a lunatic and working his way upstream.

My heart melted. Uncle Gerald had been a steady presence in my life as a child, and although I had hardly seen him during my adult years, the bond that was formed during those childhood visits – nothing overly special, just a kind smile and couple of quid for sweets tucked into my sticky fingers – had never gone away. It was a bond that represented the safety and easiness of family. A bond that is usually lobbed into the back of the dresser drawer, stashed away, forgotten and allowed to loiter with the unused Christmas cards, nutcrackers and Sellotape, until the day came along when you actually needed it, and you opened the drawer with a rummage saying to yourself, ‘I just know I left it in there somewhere.’

Gerald rested his umbrella against my suitcase and put his arms around me.

I wasn’t expecting the sudden onset of emotion, but he represented a simpler time. A happy time. A time of singing together in the kitchen with Mum. The Carpenters.

‘Rainy Days and Mondays’.

I started to cry.

He patted.

‘Now then, none of that, none of that.’

‘Oh, don’t mind me, Uncle Gerald,’ I said, trying to smile while rifling through my