‘There’s nothing little about it,’ Letitia says, and sets us both off again.

9

Leena

It’s six twenty-two, and I’m awake. This seems to be my new pattern. I nip to the loo, then attempt to go back to sleep, but I left the bedroom door ajar and it takes Ant the cat approximately twenty seconds to find his way in and locate my face for sitting on.

I shove him off with a growl and get up. Oh, that was Dec, not Ant. Naming her indistinguishable cats Ant and Dec is just the sort of long-term, mischievous joke my grandmother enjoys, though I suspect, if questioned, she will feign innocence and insist it was Grandpa Wade’s idea.

Downstairs, after feeding Ant/Dec – who chain-meows all the way down the stairs, barely pausing for breath between plaintive yowls – I blink sleepily at the array of teas behind the kettle, all stored in carefully labelled old biscuit tins. God, I miss Fitz’s coffee machine. There’s a particular itch that tea and even instant coffee just cannot scratch.

It’s Wednesday today, which means I’ll be walking Jackson Greenwood’s dog; I was up late last night baking homemade dog treats out of whatever I could find in Grandma’s fridge. I did a bit of research on dog-walking, and apparently treats are a crucial part of the process. By the time I realised that, the shops – or rather, the shop singular – were closed, so I had to hustle a bit and figure something out. Now there are some squishy cubes of mince, egg, and crushed-up Weetabix sitting in a sandwich bag on the sideboard. They look disgusting.

While the kettle boils, I stare at the dog treats and take a brief moment to wonder what the hell I’m doing with my life right now, and then – because those thoughts rarely lead to anything fruitful, and it’s a bit late to change this plan – I make a cup of tea.

I wander into the hall with my tea and spot a letter on the doormat. It’s addressed to Leena Cotton in large, wobbly writing. Inside is a handwritten list, headed:

May Day Planning Committee responsibilities, to be passed to Leena Cotton while Eileen Cotton, longstanding co-chairperson of the Committee, is on leave.

On leave! I nearly choke on my tea.

1) Glitter

2) Lanterns

3) Trees cutting back – arrange

4) Food stalls

5) Get sponsor

6) Garlands

7) Portaloos

8) Signs

9) Parking

10) Parade costumes

My interest is officially piqued. This actually sounds like quite a fun project – I’ve never managed an event before, and by the looks of this list, Grandma handles lots of the logistics for this one: parking, signs, food stalls. And … glitter. Whatever that involves. I’ll have to ask Betsy.

That buzz alights in my belly, the flicker of excitement that used to spark whenever a new project was coming my way at work, and I think suddenly of my beautiful, colour-coordinated business plan for B&L Boutique Consulting. The files are on Dropbox; I could get them up on Grandma’s computer later. The buzz brightens, and I finish my tea with one gulp, scanning the list again.

Get sponsor is crossed through. I remember Grandma mentioning that she was hoping to get sponsorship for the May Day festival, so that profits from tickets could be given to the cancer charity that gave us so much support when Carla was sick. Had she given up? I frown, grab a pen from the hall table, and asterisk it on Betsy’s list.

One more cup of tea, and I’m out the door. I’m quite curious to see Jackson Greenwood again. When I visited my grandparents as a kid, I saw him a fair bit, as he lived with Arnold – he was this quiet, sullen boy, always loping around the garden with their old dog at his heel. Jackson was the sort of child who everyone regarded as a ‘problem’, but who hadn’t actually ever done anything wrong, specifically. He was just maungy.

Apparently Jackson is now a teacher at the local primary school. It just … doesn’t compute. In my head, primary school teachers are smiley and bouncy and say things like ‘What a good try!’, whereas Jackson just used to glower, mostly.

These days he lives in one of the newbuild blocks on the corner of Hamleigh; as I approach the development, I’m struck by how weirdly two-dimensional it seems against the shadowy backdrop of the Dales, like it’s a computer-generated image of what a block of flats might look like when it’s done. The gardens are grey and uniform in the light from the streetlamps, all stubby lawn and gravel, but Jackson’s front garden is a bustling tangle of vegetation. He’s turned it into a vegetable patch. God knows what the next-door neighbours think – their gardens are much more in keeping with the block, with terracotta pots of rosemary and little tame vines trailing up trellises by their doors.

My knock on the door is met by a loud, excited barking, which stops very abruptly. I make a face. I suspect somebody just got told off.

When Jackson opens the door I don’t have time to look at him, because a large bundle of black fur – lead flying between its legs – has hit me in the gut and sent me sprawling.

‘Oof !’ I’ve whacked my tailbone, and my wrist took the brunt of the fall, but the main thing I’m dealing with right now is the dog very enthusiastically licking my face. ‘Hello, you – would you – Christ …’

It’s sitting on top of me and has got my necklace between its teeth. Oh, and now it’s started playing tug of war with it, brilliant, that’s—

‘Bollocks, shite, sorry.’ A large hand reaches down and hauls the dog up by the collar. ‘Hank. Sit.’

Hank scrabbles off me and lands in a sitting position. Unfortunately, he takes my necklace with him; it hangs between his teeth, pendant swinging on the broken chain. I follow Hank’s adoring gaze upwards towards his owner.

It’s strange, looking at Jackson. He’s definitely the kid I knew, but it’s as though he used to be crumpled up tight and now someone’s smoothed him out – the tense jaw’s eased, the hunched shoulders have loosened, and he’s opened up into a broad-shouldered, dozy-eyed giant of a man with a mop of messy brown hair. There’s what looks like coffee down the front of his T-shirt, and a very large hole in the left knee of his jeans. On the arm that’s now holding Hank’s lead, there’s a white strip where his watch ought to be – his forearms are slightly sunburned, a real achievement in the English springtime.

At a push I’d say his expression is somewhere between bewilderment and bashfulness, but he’s got one of those unreadable faces that either means you’re deep and mysterious or don’t have much to say, so I’m not completely sure.

‘You’re not Eileen Cotton,’ he says. His Yorkshire accent is stronger than it was when he was younger – or perhaps I’ve been away too long.

‘Actually, I kind of am. I’m Leena. Remember me?’

He blinks. After a few moments his eyes widen. ‘Leena Cotton?’

‘Yep!’

‘Huh.’ After a few very long seconds Jackson shifts his gaze to the horizon and clears his throat. ‘Umm,’ he says. ‘You got … different. As in, you look different.’

‘So do you!’ I say. ‘You’re so much more …’ I flush. Where am I going with this sentence? The first word that’s popped into my head is manly, which is not a thing I’m going to say out loud. ‘I hear you’re a primary school teacher now?’ I say quickly.