Well, I assumed he was still my fiancé, though that might change once we met up at his parents house in Oxford on Monday and I laid on the line exactly what I intended to do next and, more importantly, where I wanted to do it.
It was ironic that our relationship had gone pear-shaped only once wed finally decided the time was right to stop working abroad and settle down together in the UK. And last night, when Id told him Id already invested some of the small legacy left to me by my father into commissioning stock for the online retro clothes shop I was going to set up, hed been furious, even though Id never made any secret of my plans.
He was even angrier when I added firmly, And dont count on the rest, because Ill probably need all of it to bail Aunt Debo out. The kennels are having a huge financial crisis.
Your aunts affairs are always in financial crisis, hed said dismissively. She overreaches herself taking in all those dogs that are too vicious to be rehomed, so theres no point in throwing good money after bad.
Then hed claimed that wed agreed to use my legacy as part of a deposit on a house, even though wed never so much as discussed it. And at that point I started to wonder if hed ever taken in a single thing Id said to him.
Until wed visited his parents in Oxford the previous year, hed certainly never mentioned to me that he had any intention of going back there to live and work. He seemed like an entirely different person once wed set foot on UK soil
Look, Ive got to go and pack. Well discuss it all on Monday, when Im back, hed snapped finally, then put the phone down on me.
I felt angry, confused and very upset. Why, over the course of our three-year engagement, had I never realised that the laid-back, good-natured, popular and cheerful Kieran Id tumbled headlong in love with existed only as long as everyone else was falling in with his plans? But then, wed spent most of our engagement on separate continents and even when we had managed to make our vacations coincide, wed spent them on romantic breaks in exotic locations, watching the sun coming up over the Serengeti, or setting over the Taj Mahal, so I suppose it wasnt really surprising that we appeared to have entirely misread each others character.
It was unfortunate that I could never sleep on planes, since the long flight back gave me way too much time to think. Appropriately, it was due to arrive in the UK on 1 April, All Fools Day.
I was jammed between two large, sweaty, heavy-drinking businessmen in suits, who sprawled thoughtlessly, legs wide apart and arms akimbo, as if the seat between them was empty. I might have spent the whole journey bolt upright, with my feet together and arms clamped by my sides, except that although small and skinny I have extremely sharp elbows and also an unfortunate habit of kicking intruding ankles very sharply.
After a few mutterings and dirty looks, to which I responded with sweetly smiling apologies for my nervous tics, they gave in and subsided in opposite directions away from me and I was left to my unwelcome reflections.
The previous nights argument with Kieran, unsatisfactorily conducted over a patchy phone line, only added to the feeling of acute cold feet Id recently been developing about our relationship. Now I suspected there was more than a hint of frostbite setting in around my toes.
It wasnt that I didnt still have feelings for Kieran a vision of his blunt-featured face with its slightly wonky, rugby-bashed nose, under a mop of sun-bleached fair hair popped into my mind and slightly weakened my knees, if not my resolve but did he love me enough to change his plans, rather than assume it would be the other way round?
I suspected not.
When we first met, it felt so right that I thought falling in love with him must be part of my preordained destiny. Even though my best friends, Lulu and Cameron, teased me about my conviction that I had a near-death experience and went to Heaven while I was in a coma after the accident, and was sent back only because I had some important purpose to perform in life, I knew it was real. Since then I just had to tune inwards to the voice of my guardian angel from time to time to check Id taken the right turning only with Kieran, I think I must have fallen for him so hard that I misread the message.
My path through life had appeared clearly marked till then, for after studying Textiles and Design, Id accepted a job with the Womens World Workshops Foundation, which sent me on assignments all over the world, though the majority were in India. The pay was minimal, but the job satisfaction immense: discovering the skills and artistic heritage of each area and finding ways of utilising them in the making of beautiful garments, the sale of which could transform the lives of the local women involved in the scheme and, through them, those of their families and even their whole communities.
And all the time I was amassing a huge portfolio of colours, designs, patterns, ideas and contacts, ready for the day when I would finally go home for good to Halfhidden, the small village in west Lancashire where I grew up, and set up my own business selling retro-inspired clothes.
Yes, the way forward had unrolled in front of me like an inviting magic carpet until I literally bumped into Kieran in Pakistan, where he was working as a doctor for a medical charity and I was helping some enterprising local women to set up a co-operative making woven jackets.
It seemed like sheer serendipity that we should have been in the same place at the same time though not so serendipitous afterwards, since we rarely managed more than snatched days together whenever we could make our leaves coincide.
Perhaps if wed spent more time in each others company, we wouldnt still have been engaged.
Id always believed that Kieran was a wonderful doctor who loved his work as much as I loved mine it was just that until a few months before, he hadnt mentioned that hed always intended joining his familys GP practice in Oxford. When I discovered this, hed suggested that I could just as easily set up my business there as anywhere else.
But although Oxford was a lovely city, it wasnt my city. Im a country girl, used to living on the edge of moorland, a short drive from endless expanses of beaches, not a hemmed-in-by-dreaming-spires one.
And then, Kierans parents were a bit of a shock, too. Miranda, his overbearing mother, and Douglas, his sarcastic, know-it-all father, not only assumed Id fall in with Kierans plans, but had already started to look for a house for us. Miranda was even trying to take charge of my wedding, checking out reception venues at stately homes within easy reach of Oxford. That was the last straw.
I think youre being very ungrateful, when my mothers taking all this trouble, Kieran had said, when Id rung him, furious. Then hed added that since I was always banging on about my destiny, I should realise that joining his parents GP practice was his.
Wed had so many arguments recently and that last one had reached a sort of crisis point, so that although I intended going straight from the airport to Oxford, as wed arranged, I resolved that when Kieran arrived the following day the discussion was not going to go the way he so clearly expected it to.
Suddenly my inner voice was telling me, loud and clear, to go home to Halfhidden and that I was needed there not only by Aunt Debo, but also by my friend Lulu.
Suddenly my inner voice was telling me, loud and clear, to go home to Halfhidden and that I was needed there not only by Aunt Debo, but also by my friend Lulu.
Lulu had been living in France for years, in an increasingly abusive relationship with an older man called Guy, whod turned out to be an alcoholic and since he had his own vineyard, that gave him rather a lot of scope. He hadnt been physically abusive to her, but instead sapped her spirit and self-confidence over the years with the drip, drip, drip of criticism. Cameron and I had both worried about her, but there wasnt a lot we could do.
She efficiently ran the self-catering holiday gîtes and B&B rooms in the small manor and outbuildings of the estate, while Guy occupied himself with the making and consumption of wine. Id visited only once and, on the surface, hed been jovial, charming and welcoming though since Lulu, Cam and I emailed each other most days, I knew that he was jealous of any other men who might show an interest in her.
Cameron went out there every summer to teach watercolours at their annual artists week, and Guy tolerated his presence because he was under the misguided impression he was gay!
Then, at the end of the last summer school, Guy had been off on a bender and Lulu had finally snapped, packed a bag, grabbed her passport and left with Cam.
Now she was living in a static caravan in the small paddock that had once been occupied by her pony, Conker, behind the Screaming Skull Hotel in Halfhidden, and trying to expand the Haunted Weekend breaks set up by her parents into week-long Haunted Holidays.
I need you, shed told me during our last brief phone call. My brother, Bruce, and his wife, Kate, have taken over the pub and restaurant, leaving Mum and Dad to concentrate on the hotel side, and Im sure they only handed over the management of the Haunted Weekends to give me a role. So my Haunted Holidays simply have to be a success. I need way more ghostly goings-on and you have a better imagination than I do.
Why dont you ask Cams grandfather, Jonas? Id suggested. He told me all kinds of old legends and stories when I was little, so Im sure he could come up with some ideas especially if it brings more visitors to the Lady Spring, too. In fact, Id added, why not call a meeting and get other people from the village on board? This could bring visitors to the whole valley, not just the pub.
Great idea, shed enthused. See, I said you have lots of imagination!
Now she was going to do just that, holding the first meeting on Tuesday evening so if Kieran and I had the almighty falling-out tomorrow that I suspected was on the cards, Id be back in time for it.
Im so looking forward to seeing you again, Lulu had said. Do you know, its been nearly four years? And Cam hasnt seen you for even longer. Its lovely that Cam has moved back here too, but its not the same when it isnt the three of us.
No, youre right, Id agreed, and then suddenly Id longed even more to be at Halfhidden again, that Shangri-La of my childhood. It was pulling me back and, despite what had happened in the past, it would always be the place where I felt I truly belonged.
I got off the plane in much the same sticky and dishevelled state Id got onto it, though at least Id sent most of my heavy luggage on to Halfhidden and only had one suitcase with me.
Kierans father was meeting me, which made me feel a little awkward, anticipating the next days full and frank discussion. I wasnt sure what would happen after that, except Id be going straight home, leaving the ball in Kierans court.
There had been no getting out of it, though: Douglas had to be in London for some meeting or seminar the day before, and had stayed up to have lunch with friends before heading home, and hed insisted on collecting me from Heathrow on his way back to Oxford.
Rough journey? he said, after failing to recognise me until I went right up to him. This lack of tact only hardened my resolve as we set off towards Oxford, and since I was thinking ahead to what I was going to say to him and Miranda when we arrived, it was a while before I noticed he was driving very fast and also, unless hed taken to using whisky as an aftershave, hed been drinking.
And on that very thought, even though we were just approaching a sharp bend, Douglas recklessly swung out to overtake a lorry straight into the path of a small blue car coming the other way.
There wasnt enough room to get past and Douglas jammed on the brakes, jerking me sharply forward Then the weirdest thing happened. It was as if, for just a second, the fabric of time ripped open and I fell through, right into the Range Rover on the night Harry Salcombe died.
Then, equally suddenly, I was catapulted out again, into a gentle, familiar bright light, filled by a soft susurration of wings and a hint of celestial music
I found I was now hovering above the car, which had spun right round and was facing back the way wed come, while the small blue one was in a ditch. I could see myself sitting like a statue in the passenger seat, eyes wide with shock, and hear the thin thread of Douglass voice, as if through water.
Come on, Izzy, be quick change places with me! he demanded, pulling at my arm urgently, as if he could drag me across into the drivers seat. Izzy, come on, Ill lose my licence, he snapped. Pull yourself together, youre not hurt.
Then he sharply slapped my face and instantly I was back in my body and gasping with shock, partly at the blow and partly from once again being wrenched back from Heaven.
Chapter 2: Fault Lines
By then other drivers had stopped and the police were there in minutes, I said, trying to describe the scene to Daisy Silver, one of Aunt Debos oldest friends. An ambulance came soon after, and then it all got a bit confusing.
I expect it did, after such a shock, Daisy said in her calm, warm voice, pouring me a mug of coffee and pushing it across the wide, battered pine table in the cosy basement kitchen of her Hampstead house.
Her ample curves were enveloped in a familiar old rubbed purple velvet kaftan and she had loosened the thick plait of hair that usually circled her head like a silver crown so that it hung down her back to her waist or where her waist would have been, had she had one.
Douglas is an awful man! I mean, hes a doctor, yet instead of getting out to see if the people in the other car needed any help, he just kept on and on at me to say I was driving. Luckily no one was seriously injured, but the mother and two small children in the other car were really shaken up.
He does seem to have entirely disregarded his Hippocratic oath, she agreed drily.
Yes and even when the police were questioning him, he insisted the driver of the other car was at fault and wanted me to back him up.
Which Im assuming you didnt?
No, of course not. I told them it was entirely his fault for overtaking on a bend and then, of course, he was even more furious with me. When they breathalysed him, he was way over the limit, so they charged him with drink-driving as well as dangerous driving and goodness knows what else though, come to think of it, I didnt tell them about him asking me to pretend to have been the driver.