Chapter 2 The Cost of Going Back

Forty-six pounds and eighty pence.

For the privilege of sitting in a slightly grubby carriage, drinking overpriced coffee and travelling to a city she'd spent the better part of six years avoiding.

She'd checked the ticket price four times before buying it, hoping that some miraculous discount might appear if she refreshed the page often enough.

It hadn't.

The cheapest option involved leaving at an hour she considered deeply offensive, but she'd booked it anyway.

Now, sitting beside the window with her rucksack tucked between her feet, she was beginning to question the wisdom of the entire enterprise.

"Forty-six bloody pounds," she muttered.

The elderly woman sitting across the aisle glanced at her.

Clarissa pretended to be looking at her phone.

It wasn't that she couldn't afford the ticket.

Well.

Technically, she couldn't.

But she'd paid for it, which amounted to much the same thing if you didn't think about it too carefully.

The money had come from what she'd been optimistically calling her emergency fund. A small collection of savings she'd managed to accumulate over the last few months, intended for unexpected expenses.

Apparently, inheriting a library counted as an unexpected expense.

She'd always imagined emergencies would involve something more dramatic. A burst pipe, perhaps. An emergency dentist appointment. The sudden need to flee the country.

Not a train ticket to Hull.

Her phone vibrated.

Clarissa glanced at the screen.

A notification from her banking app.

She opened it, studied the balance and immediately wished she hadn't.

"Brilliant."

She locked the phone.

There were certain numbers a person simply didn't need to see before nine in the morning.

Outside, the countryside slipped past in a patchwork of green fields, hedgerows and distant farmhouses. The sky was pale and overcast, but patches of sunlight occasionally broke through the clouds, illuminating stretches of farmland in soft gold.

It was rather beautiful, actually.

Clarissa leaned her head against the window and watched a small cluster of sheep disappear behind a line of trees.

At least the view was free.

For now.

She wouldn't put it past the railway companies to start charging extra for that.

The journey had given her plenty of time to think.

Unfortunately, thinking was something Clarissa had become exceptionally good at, particularly when there was absolutely nothing useful she could do about the things occupying her mind.

She'd spent the previous week exchanging emails with a solicitor named T. Ashcombe.

He'd been unfailingly polite.

Almost suspiciously polite.

Every email had begun with Dear Miss Mayfield and ended with Kind regards, T. Ashcombe, followed by an impressive collection of professional qualifications and contact details.

He'd answered her questions about the inheritance, explained which documents she needed to bring and arranged an appointment for that afternoon.

He'd also mentioned, on three separate occasions, that he was looking forward to discussing the history of the property.

Clarissa wasn't entirely sure why.

As far as she was concerned, the building had one particularly interesting historical feature.

It belonged to her.

And she could sell it.

Everything else was decoration.

She opened her email and found his most recent message.

Dear Miss Mayfield,

Thank you for confirming your travel arrangements. I have scheduled our consultation for 3.00 p.m., which should allow you ample time to arrive and make your way to the office.

I have also located some additional information concerning the history of your grandfather's property, which I believe you may find rather interesting.

I look forward to meeting you.

Kind regards,

T. Ashcombe

Clarissa read the message again.

Rather interesting.

She'd noticed he used phrases like that quite frequently.

Rather interesting.

Most unusual.

Quite remarkable.

He sounded like someone who wore waistcoats and had strong opinions about the correct way to prepare tea.

She pictured a balding gentleman in his late fifties, sitting behind a large wooden desk surrounded by leather-bound books and framed certificates.

Probably wore spectacles on a little chain.

Probably called people my dear.

She hoped he wouldn't be offended when she asked how quickly the property could be sold.

Because she was going to ask.

Immediately.

Preferably before he started explaining the architectural significance of the building's guttering.

She closed the email and opened another.

This one was from the marketing agency she'd been working for all week.

The subject line read:

LA Hotels — Final Content Approval.

Her stomach tightened.

She opened it.

Hi Clarissa,

Thanks for sending everything over. The client is reviewing the final batch of articles and we'll let you know if any revisions are needed.

Once approved, we'll get your invoice processed.

Clarissa stared at the message.

Once approved.

Three little words.

Three little words that could mean tomorrow, next Tuesday or sometime shortly before the sun burned itself out.

She'd spent the entire week writing about luxury hotels in Los Angeles.

Rooftop swimming pools. Private balconies. Michelin-starred restaurants. Egyptian cotton sheets with thread counts that apparently required their own paragraph.

She'd written about beachfront suites costing more per night than she paid in rent.

She'd described champagne breakfasts, exclusive spas and panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean with the enthusiasm of someone who had never been within three thousand miles of any of them.

By Thursday she'd developed a personal dislike of infinity pools.

By Friday she'd begun fantasising about throwing her laptop into one.

The contract was worth a decent amount, though.

Enough to cover several bills, provided the client didn't decide that all twelve articles needed rewriting because someone in marketing had suddenly developed an objection to the word luxurious.

She typed a reply.

Hi,

Thanks for the update. Happy to make any necessary revisions. Do you have an estimated date for payment once approval is complete?

Kind regards,

Clarissa

She hesitated.

Was that too pushy?

She read it again.

No.

She'd done the work.

She was allowed to ask when she'd be paid.

She pressed send before she could talk herself out of it.

Then she tucked her phone into her coat pocket and looked out of the window.

Somewhere beyond the fields, a flock of birds rose suddenly from a line of trees, scattering against the pale sky.

Clarissa watched them until they disappeared.

It must be nice, she thought, to go wherever you wanted without having to check whether you could afford the fare.

She hadn't booked a hotel.

That particular decision had been made after approximately eleven seconds of looking at accommodation prices.

Even the cheapest rooms had been more than she wanted to spend, and she couldn't justify paying for somewhere to sleep when she technically owned an entire building.

Admittedly, it was a building she hadn't seen in years.

And it might not have heating.

Or working electricity.

Or particularly pleasant plumbing.

But it had a roof.

Probably.

More importantly, she remembered a little room at the back of the library.

It had been her favourite place when she was small.

Grandad Arthur had kept an old sofa there, a rather ugly brown thing with cushions that swallowed her whole whenever she sat down. There'd been a little table beside it, a lamp with a crooked shade and a narrow window overlooking the yard behind the building.

She used to curl up on the sofa with a book while her grandfather worked in the front.

Sometimes she'd fall asleep there.

She remembered waking beneath a blanket, hearing the distant murmur of customers and the gentle clink of teaspoons against mugs.

Arthur would always appear eventually, carrying a plate with two biscuits.

One for her.

One for him.

Although he usually ended up giving her both.

Clarissa smiled faintly at the memory.

If the sofa was still there, she could sleep on it for a night or two.

She'd packed a blanket, a change of clothes, toiletries and a packet of cereal bars. Her rucksack was heavier than she'd have liked, but at least she wouldn't have to pay for accommodation.

She'd also packed her laptop.

That had been a difficult decision.

On one hand, carrying the thing around increased the chances of it finally giving up.

On the other, leaving it at home meant she couldn't work.

And she couldn't afford not to work.

So the laptop had come along, wrapped in a jumper and wedged between her clothes like a particularly fragile family heirloom.

She'd even brought the charger, despite the fact that its cable had developed a worrying tendency to work only when bent at a specific angle.

It was currently held together with electrical tape.

She'd considered replacing the charger.

Then she'd seen the price.

Electrical tape was a perfectly respectable engineering solution.

Probably.

Her stomach rumbled.

Clarissa unzipped her bag and retrieved a cereal bar.

Breakfast.

She'd eaten toast before leaving, but that had been hours ago, and the smell of bacon sandwiches drifting from somewhere further down the carriage was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

She peeled back the wrapper and took a bite.

It tasted mostly of oats and disappointment.

Still, it was food.

She chewed thoughtfully, watching a farmhouse slide past the window.

If the LA Hotels contract paid on time, she might even treat herself to something nice while she was in Hull.

Something unnecessary.

Something she didn't need to justify.

There was a little chocolatier a few doors down from her grandfather's library.

Or there had been.

She wondered whether it was still there.

She remembered standing outside the shop as a child, pressing her nose against the glass and staring at rows of handmade chocolates arranged in little gold trays.

Truffles dusted with cocoa.

Chocolate-covered strawberries.

Delicate little shapes decorated with coloured icing and curls of white chocolate.

Everything had looked impossibly expensive.

Arthur had taken her inside once, just to look.

She'd been too embarrassed to ask for anything.

He'd offered to buy her a little box, but she'd refused, insisting she didn't want any.

It had been a lie.

She'd wanted them desperately.

But even at ten years old she'd understood that some things were expensive, and she'd never liked the idea of making someone spend money on her.

She'd promised herself she'd come back one day and buy a whole box.

Not a little one.

A proper box.

The sort with a ribbon.

She'd eat them slowly, one at a time, and wouldn't have to share unless she wanted to.

Clarissa smiled.

Twenty-five years old, and her ambitions had apparently narrowed to owning a functioning laptop and purchasing luxury confectionery.

Still.

There were worse dreams.

She finished the cereal bar and folded the wrapper into a neat little square.

If the chocolatier was still open, and if the hotel articles paid, she would buy herself something.

A small box, perhaps.

Nothing ridiculous.

She could be sensible and indulgent at the same time.

She was an adult.

That was supposed to be one of the advantages.

The train rattled across a stretch of track, making the window tremble against her temple.

Clarissa shifted in her seat.

The countryside had changed gradually over the course of the journey. Broad fields gave way to smaller settlements, industrial buildings and stretches of road running alongside the railway.

She recognised some of the scenery.

Not individual places, exactly.

More the shape of things.

The flatness of the land.

The wide skies.

The particular way the horizon seemed to stretch endlessly away without anything substantial interrupting it.

East Yorkshire.

She hadn't realised how familiar it would feel.

For a while, she let herself enjoy the view.

There were villages with neat rows of houses, church towers rising above rooftops and fields divided by hedges that looked almost black against the damp earth.

Occasionally the train passed a little station, its platform empty except for a bench and a collection of flowerpots.

The world outside seemed quiet.

Unhurried.

She found herself wondering what it would be like to live somewhere like that.

A small village.

A little cottage.

A garden.

Perhaps a dog.

She could work from home, take walks in the countryside and spend her evenings reading beside a fire.

Then she remembered that cottages cost money.

Gardens required maintenance.

Dogs needed feeding.

And fires required either expensive electricity or actual wood.

She sighed.

Even her daydreams came with invoices.

Her phone vibrated again.

For one glorious second, she hoped it was the hotel contract.

It wasn't.

It was a message from her friend Sophie.

You on the train yet?

Clarissa smiled and typed back.

Unfortunately.

How's it going?

I've spent nearly fifty quid to sit in a moving tin can and eat a cereal bar. Living the dream.

Three laughing emojis appeared.

At least you're going to be a property owner.

I already am a property owner. That's the problem.

You could be rich!

Clarissa snorted.

It's a tiny library in Hull, Soph. Not a penthouse in Monaco.

Still. You never know.

Clarissa looked out at the passing countryside.

I know enough.

There was a pause.

Then another message appeared.

How are you feeling about your grandad?

The smile faded from her face.

She stared at the words for a moment.

It was a simple question.

A kind one.

And she had absolutely no idea how to answer it.

Bit strange, she eventually typed.

She watched the little message bubble appear.

Then added:

Still doesn't feel real.

Sophie replied almost immediately.

I'm sorry, Clary. I know you loved him.

Clarissa swallowed.

She did.

That was the problem.

She'd loved him very much.

She'd just somehow managed to spend the last several years behaving as though there would always be time to tell him.

Thanks, she wrote.

Then, because she couldn't bear the conversation becoming any heavier, she added:

Anyway, if the library turns out to be worth a fortune, I'll buy you a yacht.

I'll hold you to that.

It'll be a very small yacht.

How small?

Inflatable.

Sophie sent another laughing emoji.

Clarissa smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.

She put the phone away.

Outside, the sky had begun to darken.

The first time Clarissa had left Hull, she'd been eighteen.

She remembered standing on the platform with two suitcases, a rucksack and a train ticket clutched so tightly in her hand that the paper had become damp.

She'd been terrified.

Not of leaving.

Of having to come back.

She'd spent years imagining the moment she'd finally escape. Years watching people settle into lives that seemed to grow smaller with every passing month.

The same streets.

The same conversations.

The same complaints about money, weather, work and the general unfairness of everything.

She'd wanted more.

Not necessarily wealth or fame.

Just something different.

A chance to become someone who wasn't defined by where she'd grown up.

She remembered how she'd felt when the train had pulled away from the platform.

Relief.

Pure, uncomplicated relief.

She'd watched Hull disappear behind her and promised herself she would never return unless she absolutely had to.

It was a childish promise, perhaps.

An unfair one.

But she'd meant it.

Now, seven years later, she was coming back.

And the worst part was that she wasn't returning triumphantly, with a successful career and a bank account full of money.

She was returning with a failing laptop, a rucksack full of cereal bars and the desperate hope that her dead grandfather's library might be worth enough to keep her afloat.

She gave a small, humourless laugh.

"Well done, Clarissa."

A man sitting across the aisle looked up from his newspaper.

She pretended to cough.

The train continued east.

She watched the landscape change, her reflection becoming more visible in the window as the clouds thickened.

There she was.

Twenty-five years old.

Hair escaping from its knot.

Dark circles beneath her eyes.

A faint crease between her eyebrows that seemed to have taken up permanent residence.

She looked tired.

Not dramatically so.

Just tired in the way people became when they spent too much time worrying about things they couldn't control.

She wondered what her grandfather would have said if he could see her now.

Probably something ridiculous.

Something about how a young lady ought to smile more.

Then he'd have winked, offered her a biscuit and asked what she'd been reading.

The thought made her chest ache.

She turned away from the window.

For several minutes she simply sat there, listening to the steady rhythm of the wheels against the tracks.

She'd been so busy thinking about the library, the paperwork and the possibility of selling the building that she'd barely allowed herself to think about why she was going there in the first place.

Arthur was dead.

Not ill.

Not away.

Not waiting behind the counter with a book in his hands and a smile on his face.

Dead.

She would never hear his voice again.

Never sit in that little back room while he made tea.

Never listen to him explain why a particular book was worth reading, even when the cover looked dreadful.

She pressed her lips together.

"Stop it," she whispered.

Not because she didn't want to remember him.

Because she didn't want to cry on a train full of strangers.

She took a breath.

Then another.

Outside, a line of bare trees swept past, their branches reaching towards the grey sky.

She focused on them until the tightness in her throat began to ease.

There would be time for all that later.

She had an appointment to keep.

A building to inspect.

Practical things.

Things she could actually do something about.

She took out her phone and checked the time.

Still on schedule.

Good.

At least something was.

The announcement came as the train began to slow.

"We will shortly be arriving at Hull Paragon Interchange."

Clarissa's stomach dropped.

It was immediate.

A sudden, heavy sensation, as though someone had placed a stone somewhere beneath her ribs.

She hadn't expected it.

She'd spent the entire journey telling herself that this was just a business trip.

A meeting.

A property inspection.

A quick visit to a city she happened not to like very much.

Nothing more.

But hearing the name spoken aloud did something unpleasant to her.

Hull.

She looked out of the window.

The countryside was gone.

In its place were railway sidings, brick buildings, industrial yards and the backs of houses that seemed to huddle together beneath the low sky.

Graffiti marked sections of wall beside the tracks.

Weeds grew between stretches of old fencing.

A collection of discarded plastic bags fluttered against a wire barrier.

Clarissa felt her shoulders tighten.

There it was.

That familiar heaviness.

She knew it wasn't entirely fair.

Hull had its good parts. She knew that. There were beautiful old buildings, museums, the marina and streets that could be genuinely lovely on the right day.

Her grandfather had adored the place.

He'd talked about its history as though every brick had a story to tell.

He'd loved its stubbornness, its people and the way it carried its past without making much of a fuss about it.

But Clarissa had never been able to see it the way he did.

To her, Hull was grey mornings and damp pavements.

It was buses that never seemed to arrive when you needed them.

It was shopfronts with peeling paint and the endless feeling that somewhere else, somewhere beyond the flat horizon, life might be better.

And it was memories.

Far too many memories.

Some good.

Some she'd spent years trying not to think about.

She shifted in her seat.

The train passed another row of houses.

She recognised the shape of the rooftops, the narrow gardens backing onto the railway, the little clusters of satellite dishes.

She'd forgotten how much she remembered.

That was the worst thing about coming back.

The city didn't have to do anything.

It simply existed, and suddenly she was eighteen again, desperate to leave.

She glanced down at her rucksack.

Her laptop was inside.

Her entire livelihood, wrapped in a jumper and protected by a packet of cereal bars.

She thought about the library.

The solicitor.

The money she might make from selling it.

She thought about the little chocolatier and the box of chocolates she'd promised herself as a child.

Then she thought about Arthur.

And for the first time since receiving the letter, she wondered whether she was doing something terribly wrong.

Selling his library.

The place he'd loved.

The place he'd spent so many years filling with books.

She pictured him standing behind the counter, his glasses perched on the end of his nose.

Would he be disappointed?

Would he understand?

Clarissa stared at her reflection in the window.

"I need the money, Grandad."

She hadn't intended to say it aloud.

The words slipped out before she could stop them.

She looked around quickly.

Nobody appeared to have noticed.

She swallowed.

"I really do."

The train slowed further.

The buildings outside became more familiar, the railway lines multiplying as they approached the station.

She could see platforms ahead.

A signal.

The dark framework of the station roof.

Her stomach tightened again.

She wasn't ready.

It was an absurd thought.

She'd bought the ticket. Packed the bag. Arranged the meeting. Travelled all this way.

Of course she was ready.

She had to be.

The train rolled beneath the great roof of Paragon Station, its wheels squealing faintly as it slowed alongside the platform.

Clarissa watched the familiar brickwork slide past the window.

People stood waiting with suitcases, shopping bags and takeaway coffees.

Ordinary people.

Going about ordinary lives.

For them, this was just another Monday.

For Clarissa, it felt like stepping backwards into a life she'd worked very hard to leave behind.

The train came to a stop.

There was a brief silence before the doors released with a mechanical hiss.

Around her, passengers began gathering their belongings.

Clarissa remained seated for a moment.

She looked down at her phone.

3:00 p.m.

T. Ashcombe.

The library.

The inheritance.

She took a breath, reached for her rucksack and stood.

"Right," she murmured.

She pulled the straps over her shoulders and made her way towards the door.

"Let's get this over with."

She stepped onto the platform.

The air was cool, carrying the familiar mixture of diesel, damp stone and railway dust.

Somewhere nearby, a suitcase rattled over the paving.

A child was crying.

An announcement echoed beneath the station roof.

Clarissa stopped for half a second, looking towards the concourse.

She had forgotten how much the place smelled like home.

And how much she hated that it did.

Then she squared her shoulders and started walking.

She had a solicitor to meet.

A library to sell.

And absolutely no intention of staying in Hull a moment longer than necessary.