‘It won’t be the same.’
No, it wouldn’t be. But then, things hadn’t been the same between them since Andrew had died.
Freya had always been private. The only person she really opened up to was Alison—but of course the loss was Alison’s, so Freya had tried to remain stoic and strong for her friend, not burdening her with her own grief.
She said goodbye to Betty, who promised she would join them all at the Tavern shortly, and then drove the short distance home in her little purple car.
It was July. The holidaymakers were back and the town was busy.
She parked outside her tiny fisherman’s cottage which, although a bit of a renovator’s nightmare, was certainly a home.
Each of the houses along the foreshore was a different colour, and Freya’s little cottage was a duck-egg-blue with a dark wooden door. Opening it, she stepped into the surprisingly large lounge with its open fireplace, seeing on the mantelpiece her favourite pictures and little mementoes.
Freya headed into the tiny alcove kitchen. It needed a complete overhaul, but everything worked—and anyway, Freya wasn’t much of a cook. In pride of place was a coffee machine that Freya was having to leave behind in the move, as there really wasn’t that much room in her father’s car.
It would be nice for the tenants, Freya thought as she made a very quick coffee.
Freya had the house rented out over the summer, but in October it was going on the market to be sold.
In the cellar she had boxed up some of her belongings. The tiny spare bedroom looked a little bare, but it was ready for its new occupant with a pretty wrought-iron bed and a small chest of drawers.
Freya headed into the main bedroom to change out of her uniform and get ready for her leaving do, but for a moment she paused.
The unobstructed view of The Firth had sold the place to her on sight. Often at night she simply lay there in bed, looking out, and she had watched the new Queensferry crossing being built. It was a spectacular cable-stayed bridge, and Freya had watched the huge structure unfold from either side until finally the two sides had met.
It was her favourite view on earth, and as she gazed out to it Freya asked herself again what the hell she was doing leaving. Here, she had a job she loved and friends she had grown up with as well as her family, to whom she was very close.
Yet, the very things she loved about Cromayr Bay, were the very reasons she felt she had to leave.
The loss of Alison’s baby had hit everyone.
After it had happened Freya had often walked into a shop or a café, and on too many occasions the conversation would suddenly stop.
Everyone knew everyone’s business—which wasn’t always a good thing. Take tonight—there was a fair chance that her ex, Malcolm, would be at the Tavern. Not that she really thought of him much, but it was always awkward to run into him and see the hurt, angry expression in his eyes before he turned his back on her.
It wasn’t just about Malcolm, though. Freya wanted more experience and a fresh start.
She would be thirty soon, she reasoned. If she didn’t make the move now then she never would.
Deep down, though, she knew she was running away.
It was going to be hard to leave, but for Freya it was simply too hard to stay.
‘IS ANYONE...?’
Freya looked up and quickly realised that the woman in theatre scrubs wasn’t asking if she might join Freya at her table in the hospital canteen. Instead all she wanted was one of the spare chairs at Freya’s table.
People, Freya thought, didn’t even bother to speak in full sentences down here.
‘Help yourself.’ Freya nodded.
And so the lady did.
It was orientation day at the Primary Hospital, and apart from being asked her name and shown where to go Freya really hadn’t spoken to anyone. She had tried during the coffee break, but Rita, the woman she had sat next to during the lectures, had gone off to call her husband.
The schedule had been a full one. First there had been an introduction to the Primary—a large general hospital with a major trauma centre. The volume of patients seen in Casualty per annum was, to Freya, staggering, as was the number of deliveries in Maternity, which had reached seven thousand last year.
There was no such thing as orientation day at Cromayr Bay—a new staff member would be shown around and introduced and made welcome. Here, though, Freya sat with approximately fifty fellow nurses, admin staff and ancillary workers who were commencing, or had just commenced work at the Primary this month alone.
Freya felt like a very small fish in a very large and rather cold sea.
On Friday she had been in to collect her uniforms and her lanyard and had got rather lost on her way out of the huge building. Today, though, sitting in the lecture theatre, she had found out that the red strip painted on the corridor wall led to Casualty and the main exit. So that was good to know. The yellow strip, she had then been told, led to Maternity and the blue to Outpatients.
‘It helps not just the staff and the patients,’ the admin manager had said, ‘but it is also far easier to give directions to visitors. We shall soon be adding a green strip for the Imaging Department. Any more than that and the walls will start to look like rainbows!’
After a morning of lectures and films they had been told to head off for lunch and to be back at one.
There was no coloured strip that led to the canteen, but by following the overhead signs Freya had found it quite easily.
The place had been packed, and Freya had rather wished she had thought to bring her own lunch, as most of her fellow orientation candidates seemed to have done. Perhaps that was why she sat alone.
She hadn’t brought any change for the vending machines, so she’d queued up and selected a salad wrap, a packet of cheese and biscuits and a coffee, and then scanned the busy canteen for a table.
They’d all been rather full, but there had been a couple of seats that had seemed free on a table for four.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’ Freya had asked.
‘We’re just leaving,’ the man there had said.
They had also left their plates, glasses and cups.
She had to stop comparing things to Cromayr Bay, but all this was just so unlike anything she was used to.
Since her father had left her at her one-bedroom flat, four days ago, Freya hadn’t really spoken to anyone. Well, apart from a couple of shop assistants and a worker on the Underground who had helped Freya to buy a travel pass.
She had rung her mother and assured her that everything was fantastic.
‘Your dad said the flat’s a bit grim.’
It was rather grim, but Freya had reassured her mum that it was nothing a few rugs and pictures wouldn’t pretty up, and reminded her that it was a brilliant location—just a ten-minute walk to the Underground.
‘Is anyone...?’
Freya looked up as another unfinished question was asked by an elderly man in a porter’s uniform.
‘No,’ Freya said, and gestured to an empty seat. ‘Help yourself.’
He said nothing in response, just took a seat at the table and opened up some sandwiches, then pulled out a newspaper and started to read.
There was no conversation.
Having