Creature Comforts. Trisha Ashley

his anyway, wouldn’t it?’

      She nodded. ‘What happened next?’

      ‘We had to go to the police station, but eventually they said I could go, so I got into a taxi and came here. I never gave a thought to how much the fare would cost until we arrived, but I’ll pay you back tomorrow.’ I clamped my hands around the mug of hot coffee.

      ‘That’s not important, and you know I’m always glad to see you, whatever the reason.’

      ‘I do, and it seemed natural to head here,’ I said gratefully, for as well as knowing Daisy from her frequent visits to stay with us in Halfhidden, I’d spent several weeks convalescing with her after the original accident when I was sixteen. She was a child psychiatrist by profession, but I hadn’t been her patient; it was just that Debo had thought a total change of scene would do me good.

      ‘Very sensible,’ she approved. ‘In fact, you behaved extremely well, given the shock you’d had.’

      ‘It could easily have been a fatal crash.’ I shivered. ‘All because he drank too much and drove like an idiot.’

      ‘Health professionals have all the human failings, just like anyone else,’ Daisy said. ‘But I’m horrified he should have asked you to change places in the car with him.’

      ‘I don’t suppose Kieran ever told him about the accident I was involved in – in fact, Douglas probably doesn’t even know I can’t drive.’

      ‘He should never have thought of asking you, whether he did or not. It’s wonderful that the family in the other car weren’t hurt.’

      She smiled at me and pushed over the open tin of coffee-iced biscuits. ‘Have some soothing sugar.’

      ‘Thank you,’ I said, taking one and crunching into the crisp coating.

      For a few moments we munched in amicable silence.

      Then Daisy said with her usual acuity, which I suppose was a vital component of her success as a psychiatrist, ‘Did something else happen, Izzy?’

      ‘Yes – or rather, two things happened just as we hit the other car. One of them was that I briefly went back to Heaven, like I did after the first accident … and then I was right out of my body, looking down.’

      ‘So you went through the bright tunnel again?’ she asked, interested.

      ‘There wasn’t any tunnel this time, I was just momentarily enveloped by light and colour and a strange kind of music … it was lovely. But right before that, just as we struck the other car …’

      I tailed off, trying to frame the words for what I had experienced, and Daisy didn’t push me. Any more than she had when I’d arrived by taxi half an hour before in a distressed condition, and she’d merely greeted me with her usual, ‘Oh, there you are, Izzy! Come in,’ as if I was the most welcome and expected visitor in the world.

      She’d always made me feel that way, especially when I was convalescing with her after that first dreadful accident. It was during that stay, after a trip to the V&A Museum, that I’d developed the consuming interest in textiles that eventually enabled me to help other women escape from grinding poverty. If you looked, there seemed to be a reason for everything that happened in life, good or bad … and that thought brought me back full circle to what I needed to say.

      I looked up at her familiar apple-cheeked, wise face with its clever dark eyes. ‘It was the weirdest thing, Daisy, just as if time was a curtain that ripped open to let me slip through – because suddenly, I was there in the Range Rover on the night of the accident when Harry … when I …’

      ‘That’s interesting,’ Daisy said, ‘because you had no recollection of even getting into the car, let alone subsequent events.’

      ‘So you think it was a memory?’

      ‘Possibly, because a sudden shock can bring back things the subconscious has hidden – though it can also create new “memories”,’ she gently suggested.

      ‘You mean, I might have imagined the scene I saw? But it seemed so real! We were going along the lane up towards the Green and the others, Harry, Cara and Simon, were all singing. They’d been celebrating their exam results and Harry wanted me to go back to Sweetwell Hall with them to a party, but I’d already told him I couldn’t. If I wasn’t home by ten, Judy would go down to the pub to look for me … and that’s the last real memory of that evening I have.’

      Aunt Debo, who had become my guardian after my mother’s early demise, had tended to lose track of my movements and the passing of time, while Judy, her best friend, who’d originally moved in to help with the childcare but never left, was more practical and firmly set the boundaries a teenager needed.

      ‘Judy was surprised you’d disobeyed her, but we knew Harry must have persuaded you. But to return to the flashback you had, if everyone was singing and happy, that was a good memory?’

      ‘I suppose so,’ I said, and though I think she guessed I was still holding something back, she didn’t press me. I changed tack.

      ‘I had another argument with Kieran on the phone last night and I’d decided things weren’t going to work out – or not the way he wanted them to – so I was going to have it out with him tomorrow, when he got back.’

      ‘You did seem unhappy about the way his parents were taking over your plans, last time we spoke.’

      ‘That was certainly part of it. Do you know, his mother had even started planning a huge wedding in Oxford, when I’d told her I’d always dreamed of a small one in the Halfhidden church.’

      ‘Well, Izzy, you certainly couldn’t have a big one in St Mary’s, because it can’t hold more than about thirty people at once, can it? And it’s your wedding, so you must have it where you want it.’

      ‘Or not at all. And there’s more. They’ve found us a house round the corner from theirs, which they think I’m going to put that legacy from my father into. Kieran can’t see any problem with any of that. In fact, he’s entirely failed to see my viewpoint at all, and last night after we argued he put the phone down on me!’

      ‘I’m very sorry to hear it isn’t working out, but it’s better to find out whether you’re entirely compatible before you get married, rather than afterwards,’ Daisy said. ‘If Kieran’s set on joining the family GP practice in Oxford, you’d definitely have to see a lot of his parents.’

      I shuddered. ‘I don’t even want to live in Oxford.’

      ‘It’s a very lovely place.’

      ‘I know, only it’s not my place.’ I tried to explain. ‘I know I wasn’t born in Lancashire, but despite what happened there, Halfhidden still feels like home and the one place where I truly belong. It … pulls me back.’

      ‘You were only about five when Debo and Baz Salcombe became an item and you all moved into Sweetwell Hall with him, so you probably don’t recall much before that.’

      ‘No, nothing at all. I think I remember Judy and I had our own suite in the Victorian wing of Sweetwell, where the housekeeper and her family live now, but mostly my memories are of after the affair finished, when we all moved to the Lodge.’

      ‘Debo does have the knack of staying best friends with her former lovers,’ Daisy said with a smile. ‘And it made sense to stay in the country, because by then she and Judy had got about eight or nine rescued dogs between them, way too many for town.’

      ‘Baz liked dogs, too,’ I said. ‘He never minded when Debo’s escaped and ran around the estate, or that she extended the kennels beyond the garden into the grounds.’

      ‘He was a very likeable, easy-going man,’ Daisy agreed, for she had got to know him on her frequent visits to the Lodge.

      I sighed sadly. ‘He was, and the nearest to a father figure I’ve ever