Hello, Again Read online

  As Pepper dithered on the spot, deciding whether to say hello or tiptoe past, her friend stood up and began to pack away her things, only to stagger to the side and fall over.

  ‘Josephine – are you OK?’ Pepper was by her side in an instant.

  Ditching the box, she crouched down and wrapped an arm around the woman’s shoulders, feeling the sharp edge of a jutting collarbone through the coat.

  ‘Oops,’ proclaimed Josephine in amusement. ‘What a prize pillock I am.’

  Although she had followed this up with a bark of laughter, Pepper noticed that she was trembling.

  ‘Don’t try to stand,’ she soothed. ‘Give yourself a moment.’

  Josephine had dropped her bag as she fell, so Pepper scooped up the scattered belongings. As well as pastels, a stick of charcoal and an old rag that smelt deliciously of turps, there was also a miniature set of paints, complete with tiny brushes.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about the picture,’ the woman said, as her sketch book was blown open by another gust of wind. ‘Utter tosh – only good for the fire.’

  ‘I think it’s beautiful,’ Pepper told her honestly, running a practised eye over the faint lines and daubs of grey and blue. ‘Very atmospheric.’

  ‘Poppycock!’ came the retort. ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind helping me up.’

  Pepper stood first, then slowly levered Josephine back to her feet, noting the lines of exhaustion on her friend’s face.

  ‘Do you think you should see a doctor?’ she asked.

  ‘Good Lord, no!’

  ‘Sorry.’ Pepper was contrite. ‘I just thought––’

  ‘No, I don’t want a fuss, darling. Doctors these days have enough whingers to deal with.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Pepper eyed her with disapproval. ‘Will you at least let me walk you home?’

  ‘I will do you one better than that,’ replied Josephine, her blue eyes full of mischief as Pepper folded the easel and lay it across the top of the box.

  ‘Ready? Righto – follow me.’

  Chapter 3

  Josephine Hurley had swept into Pepper’s life for the first time the previous summer, when the two of them had ended up on adjacent seats of a rail replacement bus. Unlike most of the other passengers, who were chuntering grumpily about ‘the state of the trains these days’, Josephine had clapped her hands together and proclaimed it ‘an adventure’.

  After telling Pepper her name, adding mischievously ‘I longed to shorten it to Fifi when I was in my teens, but my father said people would assume I was a go-go dancer’, she explained that she had only recently moved to Suffolk from London, having sold her home following the death of her husband.

  ‘It was far too large for one old biddy,’ she had remarked dismissively. ‘I would finish cleaning one damn room, then discover cobwebs had gathered in the next.’

  By the time they had reached their stop, Pepper had deduced that not only was this whirling dervish of a woman demonstrably sharp of wit, she was also one of those refreshing souls who say exactly what is on their mind as soon as it occurs to them.

  ‘If it was up to me, I would have carried on working until I dropped dead,’ she had told Pepper of her successful public relations company. ‘But I was overruled by the offspring. Do you have any children?’ Then, when Pepper shook her head. ‘Very wise – they spend the first half of their lives ignoring most of everything you tell them to do, then the latter half complaining that you never gave them the right guidance.’

  As well as being in firm agreement about the merits of Pepper’s home county, they found that many of their likes and dislikes were similar, too, and Josephine had clasped her hands together in delight when she found out what her new friend did for a living. She was an ardent fan of both arts and crafts, she told Pepper. ‘But certainly not a practitioner – I have less creative prowess than frogspawn.’

  Clearly, however, that was not the whole truth, and Pepper said as much as they settled in at a cosy corner table in the Turbot pub on the high street.

  ‘You told me when we met that a stickman would be a stretch,’ she said. ‘But from what I just saw down on the beach, you have some real talent.’

  ‘Hogwash,’ Josephine replied, reaching for her gin and tonic. ‘If you must know, the easel was just a decoy – an excuse to sit and stare out at the water for a while. It’s therapeutic, don’t you agree?’ Josephine stared at her thoughtfully. ‘The voice of the sea speaks to the soul, and all that.’

  ‘Does it?’ Pepper asked, seeing a flicker of amusement flash across the older woman’s face.

  ‘Lord only knows.’ Josephine’s stack of bracelets jangled as she put down her drink. ‘I cannot, for the life of me, recall where I read that quote – perhaps inside a fortune cookie or printed on a tea towel?’

  ‘Keep calm and speak to the sea?’ Pepper suggested, and was rewarded with a chortle.

  ‘Something like that. Although, I find that the beach is a good place to sit when you have some thinking to do – and,’ she added, with a satisfied sort of flourish, ‘it just so happens that I was thinking about you.’

  ‘Me?’ Pepper paused with her lemonade halfway towards her mouth. ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because,’ Josephine was tapping her fingers on the table top now, as if mulling over what exactly to say. ‘No, that won’t do,’ she went on, more to herself than to Pepper. ‘I suppose I need to start at the very beginning.’

  Pepper waited, feeling utterly mystified.

  ‘Have you been abroad much, darling?’ Josephine asked, her gaze direct.

  Pepper thought about the book in the box beside her, of folded-down pages and dreams of exploration and adventure.

  ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘Never.’

  ‘You’ve never wanted to travel? See the world? Go and “find yourself” or what have you?’

  This was a question that required a more complicated answer, and Pepper hesitated.

  ‘I did want to,’ she said at last. ‘But the opportunity never came up when I was younger, and since then, I can’t remember a time I wasn’t busy – especially since I started the business.’

  ‘I understand.’ Josephine smiled to reassure her. ‘Holidays are an indulgence.’

  Pepper went to agree, but Josephine cut across her.

  ‘But they are also a necessity.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ Pepper said lightly, watching the bubbles in her lemonade. ‘It’s really not that big a deal. I live by the beach, after all – it’s not like I’m missing out on the whole seaside thing.’

  What she didn’t add was that she had never had the guts to go alone. Most people went away with their partners, but Pepper had never held onto one of those long enough either – her most serious relationship to date had lasted less than four months.

  Josephine didn’t say anything for a while, she merely shook her head slowly from side to side, before stopping to stare hard at Pepper, as if trying to work her out.

  ‘There is something I want to tell you,’ she said finally.

  Pepper felt a cold stone of dread drop down from her throat into her stomach.

  ‘There’s no need to look so aghast.’ Josephine reached across and patted Pepper’s wrist.

  ‘I suspect you might even enjoy this story.’

  ‘Really?’ Pepper said warily. ‘Does that mean it has a happy ending?’

  Josephine thought for a moment.

  ‘That,’ she said, breaking off to sip her gin, ‘very much depends on you.’

  ‘Me? Why me?’

  ‘In order for you to understand completely,’ she said, ‘you need to know everything. But for that to happen, I will need to take you back to when I was a young woman – right back to 1966.’

  ‘OK.’ Pepper was perplexed, but she was also eager to listen. Josephine’s stories were invariably as enthralling as they were entertaining.

  ‘As you know, many people in this country claim that ’sixty-six was a great year,’ Josephine began, giving Pepper a
sidelong glance. ‘England won the World Cup for the first – and seemingly only – time in July, colour television arrived with much hurrah, and everyone was in agreement that the Beatles were just about the most wonderful thing to ever happen to music. I think John Lennon himself claimed that the band was more popular than Jesus – which tells you something about the man’s ego – but regardless, it was certainly a year of celebration and liberation.’

  Pepper could sense a ‘but’.

  ‘The mood was very much “can do”, which I suppose is why I felt brave enough to head off abroad by myself. I had always wanted to explore, and defying my poor mother and father felt like such a rebellious thing to do.’

  Pepper, who could relate to this, nodded in agreement.

  ‘I chose Portugal simply because I had read about it in a newspaper that same week,’ Josephine continued. ‘A bridge had been erected that connected Lisbon to Almada, and there were photos, so I knew it was beautiful. I wanted to get a suntan and see all the azulejos – those are painted tiles, of course. I thought I was so grown-up and cultured, but I was only seventeen. I barely knew my ankle from my earlobe at that age.’

  The door of the pub opened, and Pepper glanced up, waving back at the two women arrivals, both of whom were regular customers at her mosaic classes. Josephine fell silent, waiting while the three of them exchanged pleasantries, and there was an awkward moment when it looked as if the ladies might attempt to join them.

  ‘We’re just––’ began Pepper, pulling her best ‘please don’t sit with us’ face. Luckily, the two women cottoned on fast and, with smiling apologies, moved towards the other side of the bar instead.

  ‘So,’ Josephine went on, so quietly that Pepper had to lean forwards in order to hear her. ‘That is exactly what I did. I packed a bag, booked my ticket, and off I went.’

  ‘Just like that?’ Pepper was impressed. ‘You must have been so scared?’

  ‘Oh, not a bit of it – quite the opposite, darling.’ Josephine shook her head. ‘Being alone felt natural to me. I had never really been given the opportunity to look after myself and put my own needs first until that point, and the freedom it offered felt like a revelation. No, no – I was far too excited to be afraid.’

  Pepper gazed at her friend with awe. ‘What was it like?’ she asked eagerly. ‘Was it every bit as beautiful as you’d hoped it would be? Did you find the things you were looking for?’

  Josephine smiled, her whole demeanour softening as her memory transported her back to another time. She drank some more of her gin and tonic and seemed to relish the feel of it slipping down her throat. Pepper waited, perched as she was on the literal edge of her seat, for what came next.

  ‘My dear girl,’ Josephine said, fixing Pepper with an expression that was both wistful and mischievous. ‘What I found was not something at all – it was someone.’

  Chapter 4

  ‘Do you believe in love at first sight?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Pepper said gleefully. ‘Not that it’s ever happened to me – unless you count Robbie Williams?’

  ‘Is he a former partner of yours?’ Josephine asked, and Pepper laughed.

  ‘If only. No, he was a member of a very popular boyband in the nineties – my friends and I used to squabble over which one of us would marry him one day.’

  The pub was beginning to fill up with early diners now, and Pepper kept being distracted by people passing by their table to say hello, ask what new sessions she had coming up and tell her how much their husband, friend or colleague had loved the gift Pepper had helped them create. Josephine did not seem to mind, and smiled warmly at everyone, introducing herself merrily as ‘the resident troublemaker’, gaining herself much laughter in return.

  ‘We were talking about love,’ Pepper reminded her, as she returned from the bar with a second round. Despite Josephine’s plea that she join her on the gin, Pepper was sticking resolutely to soft drinks. She had not forgotten how close she’d come to breaking down on the beach earlier and knew that alcohol would likely push her over the edge.

  Josephine extracted the wedge of lime from her glass and squeezed it delicately.

  ‘As far as my husband Ian was concerned,’ she told Pepper, ‘he was the one who turned my insides to mush. And it’s true – I was drawn to him the instant we met. It was on Aldeburgh beach, you know – have I ever told you that?’

  Pepper shook her head.

  ‘My family and his had taken us there for a holiday over the same long weekend. He taught me how to skim stones and, because he knew the area so well, he also knew where to find all the best shells.’

  She smiled faintly at the memory.

  ‘But he wasn’t your first love?’ Pepper said.

  Josephine looked down towards her lap. The hand that was clutching the gin and tonic quivered slightly.

  ‘His name was Jorge,’ she said. ‘And without sounding too trite, he was simply the most beautiful man I had ever seen.’

  ‘Was he Portuguese?’ asked Pepper.

  ‘Yes. But he could speak English perfectly; he had spent some time over here when he was a boy, so although he spoke with a rather heavy accent, I could understand him. We understood each other, you see, that was the thing. We had this connection, right from the first moment we met until the day I left him behind in Spain.’

  ‘You travelled around together?’ Pepper sat back in surprise. ‘For how long?’

  ‘Oh, only for a few weeks,’ Josephine said, her voice faint. ‘Jorge was an aspiring artist, you see – he had always wanted to see the magnificent architecture in Barcelona, so we went there together from Lisbon and it was all so perfect. The two of us were so in love that we felt invincible.’

  Pepper was enraptured.

  ‘Why did you leave so soon?’ she asked. ‘Surely, you could have stayed longer?’

  ‘I had promised my family that I would be back,’ Josephine said. ‘I had barely any money and it wasn’t as easy to find work abroad as it is now. I thought I would go home and get a job, save some funds and make the return trip when I had the means. Jorge and I were in love, and of course, that felt like everything. We agreed that a few months apart would not break us, that we would stay in contact and see each other as soon as possible. The day I left, I truly believed that I would see him again.’

  ‘And did you?’ Pepper wanted to know, even though she could sense the answer.

  Josephine’s mouth was pulled down at the corners, but she looked resolute rather than sad.

  ‘I never heard from him,’ she explained. ‘I wrote to him, of course, sending the letters to his apartment in Lisbon, but I have no idea if any of them reached him. Perhaps he did get them and sent replies that never found their way to me? I don’t know for sure, but at the time, it hurt me so much, being ignored like that. I was proud, you see, even then.’

  She gave Pepper the ghost of a smile.

  ‘When I didn’t hear anything back from Jorge after three months had passed, I stopped trying. I did my best to put him out of my mind. And not long after that, I met Ian.’

  Pepper pressed her fingers against her cheek.

  ‘And you fell for him in the same way as you had for Jorge?’ she asked.

  Josephine’s expression was unreadable.

  ‘It was different with Ian. More straightforward, I suppose one might say. Ian and I wrote to one another at first, and then, the third time he came to visit me in London, he proposed. That was that. I was happy, and until our first child, Georgina, came along, I was settled, too. The relationship and wedding were adventure enough to satisfy that urge I had always had to push the boundaries.’

  The sun had broken through the clouds beyond the pub windows, and dappled light flooded across the table. Pepper blinked, rubbing her eyes at the sudden brightness.

  ‘And you really never heard from Jorge again after that?’ she asked, feeling rather sad.

  Josephine sighed. ‘Sometimes I wish that I had, but most of the time, I simply accept i
t for what it was. We had our moment – and it was a wonderful one – but fate clearly had bigger things for each of us to do, things that carried more weight than our feelings did. I have been lucky, Philippa dear, to have loved and been loved by two very special men. And the love I feel for Jorge now is the same as it was all those years ago – it has never been tarnished. It has kept me smiling for all these years, kept me ticking in here,’ she said, bringing a hand up to her chest.

  ‘Have you ever felt that way about someone before, my darling?’

  Pepper shook her head.

  ‘Well.’ Josephine sat up straighter. ‘There’s still plenty of time.’

  Pepper made a non-committal snuffling sound and dropped her chin towards the floor.

  ‘We’re not talking about me,’ she chided. ‘And I have a feeling we’re not at the end of this story yet.’

  Josephine chuckled. ‘Correct!’ she exclaimed. ‘There is a little more I need to tell you. As a matter of fact, I have been thinking a lot about Jorge recently, and about the journey we went on together. I thought I was content to simply leave it all behind me in the past – but then today, I thought, why don’t I go back?’

  ‘To Lisbon?’ Pepper asked.

  ‘Yes, to Lisbon!’ Josephine clasped her hands together. ‘And Barcelona – to all the places that meant something to me and Jorge. I want to retrace the steps of our love story, recapture my youth, have another adventure, perhaps even find him.’

  ‘Then you should absolutely go,’ Pepper enthused.

  ‘My dear girl,’ Josephine said, stretching a hand across and resting it on top of Pepper’s. ‘Thank you for not judging me too harshly. Many people would, you know.’

  ‘Not me,’ Pepper said simply. ‘You can’t help who you fall in love with, can you? It is a force much stronger than any of us. Just ask Shakespeare! Or Richard Curtis! Or Ed Sheeran!’