The Wildwater Women

Eloise Wood, Ellie Wood

• Publisher: HarperNorth
• Year: 2022
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9780008471187
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

Sometimes the best things in life happen when you dare to get out of your depth.

Abby lives and works in the heart of the Lake District. She splits her time between bringing up her daughter, working in the Plum Pie Bakery – and dreaming of the time before her husband, Ben, left.

Lori is on holiday from the States, hoping to find her way to the lake that she's looked at for years in a picture on her wall back home.

Rebecca is contemplating taking the plunge too. Despite her immaculate appearance Rebecca is keeping quiet about a childhood trauma which has left her scared of the water.

Clarissa is the founder of The Wildwater Women. An all-year-round open-water swimming veteran, and with a fearsome manner, she knows the lakes like no one else and her boundless energy defies her years.

Four women, all from very different lives, all with reason to step into the water and wash away their past. But will the friendship they build be enough to keep them afloat when they each must face their fears?

1

A glimmer of rose-gold light was visible over the fells, so it had to be after six, thought Abby. Maybe she should get up. She had barely managed to sleep so far; there was little to be gained from lying there any longer. So this was it. The day was here: September the third. Abby turned her head away from the window, where her still-open curtains framed the dawn, to Ben’s side of the bed. She closed her eyes, awake but dreaming.

She saw Rowan, wriggling in her arms as a baby; then as a toddler, wobbling as she learned to walk. Now another milestone was here: her first day of school.

‘She’ll be fine,’ she thought she heard Ben say, his voice a muffled whisper.

He’d never been one to stress. Always said Abby worried enough for two.

She wished he’d kiss her now, like he used to. Say he loved her again.

She reached an arm out beneath the duvet, in the hope he’d pull her in for a cuddle, but of course the sheets were cold. She opened her eyes, and reality bore down on her. Ben was gone and he wasn’t coming back. She was on her own. Just like she had been since before their daughter was even born.

She pushed back the covers, and pressed her palms to her cheeks, as though physically plastering on a brave face for Rowan’s sake. She walked into the bathroom and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Five years older since she’d last seen Ben. Longer since they’d spoken. He’d disappeared in the same way the last streaks of sunset slunk from the sky, suddenly leaving night-time in their wake; one moment Abby had a husband and a beautiful life, the next minute she’d been plunged into darkness. How time slipped away. Rowan was growing up. And he’d never even met her.

Today felt like such a big step. An unexpected burst of anger surged through her body and she braced her arms against the sink, waiting for it to subside into sadness and exhaustion. She summoned all her strength. She was going to need it to get through today. She didn’t relish the thought of dropping Rowan off at the school gates alongside all the other pairs of parents.

‘Mummy?’

Rowan pulled her back to the present, from the brink of her helter-skelter of despair. She stood in the doorway, her pyjama top on inside out, and rubbed her eyes. Her blonde hair, the same hay-bale shade as Ben’s, was sleep-ruffled. ‘I don’t want to go today.’

Abby knew how she felt. She crouched down, and gazed into her daughter’s moss-green eyes. ‘You were excited yesterday, sweetheart.’

Rowan’s forehead rumpled. ‘Can we stay here and make a cake instead?’

Abby wished more than anything that they could.

‘You’ll like it when you get there. Make lots of new friends.’ She smoothed straw-coloured strands away from Rowan’s face.

Her daughter shook her head. Which one of them had she inherited her stubbornness from? Abby wondered. Please don’t make this harder than it already is, she pleaded with her child in silence. ‘Come on, darling, let’s get you dressed.’

She was still battling to get breakfast cereal from Rowan’s spoon into her stomach, when the doorbell rang.

Rowan glanced up, intrigued by the interruption.

Abby sighed.

‘You carry on, please, poppet,’ instructed Abby, walking out of the kitchen and into the hallway. A shiver shot across her skin like an ice cube sliding down her spine. Was it going to be the landlord? But Ben had told her he’d taken care of their rent. He’d said she didn’t have to fret about that, at least.

Abby swallowed as she opened the door – and came face to face with a complete stranger.

‘Hi there. Good morning,’ the woman said with a transatlantic twang, greeting her twice as though in compensation for the disturbance.

Great, a cold-caller was exactly what she needed; the missing ingredient from her morning, thought Abby, scratching her neck as though sarcasm was worn like a scarf.

‘I apologise for interrupting …’ began the woman, beaming back at her, buttermilk locks bouncing on her shoulders.

She didn’t look sorry, thought Abby, squinting in the stark September light. The woman appeared to be around her mother’s age, and certainly had the same knack for an ill-timed visit.

‘I wonder if you could help me, if you had a spare second?’

Abby bit her lip, stopping a quip about all the surplus minutes she had at her disposal from slipping out of her mouth.

The woman’s shoulders sagged in the ensuing silence. ‘No worries …’ She swatted the crisp air and turned to leave, pulling her cashmere cardigan closer around her.

Abby felt Rowan’s warm body press itself to her hip, her daughter clearly overcome by curiosity.

‘Will you go to school so I don’t have to?’ Rowan called out into the still, chill morning.

The woman spun round. ‘Hey!’ she said to Rowan, with a wide smile and such warmth Abby felt her core thaw a little. ‘I’ve already been to school, honey,’ she said in answer to Rowan’s question. ‘A long time ago,’ she added with a laugh. ‘But it’s a lot of fun, I promise, and I can’t imagine a more beautiful part of the world to go to kindergarten in. You’re a very lucky girl, sweetie.’

Abby was struck by that last sentence: she wondered how many other people would say the same about Rowan. She squeezed her daughter’s shoulder.

‘Thanks,’ she said to the woman, her breath visible in the cold fresh air. ‘What was it you wanted to ask?’ she added, tilting her head to one side.

‘Oh, it’s just I can’t switch on the darn heater, and my cell phone is dead – I forgot one of those, er, what do you call them? The gadgets for power overseas.’

‘Adapter.’

‘That’s it.’ The woman blew out a breath. ‘So I can’t call the rental company.’

Ah, she was from the holiday cottage next door.

‘But I’ll figure it all out. You both have a great day.’

Abby watched as she struggled with the latch on the adjacent cottage’s wrought-iron gate. ‘Wait a second. I can take a quick look if you like?’

The gratitude on the woman’s face caused guilt to course through her. Had she become less giving now she was used to doing everything herself? She must have.

‘Are you sure?’

Abby nodded. She’d need to be fast, but she felt for the woman: seemingly alone in an unfamiliar place.

‘I’m Lori, by the way. Your neighbour for the time being.’

‘Hello. I’m Abby, and this is Rowan.’

‘You sound like Elsa!’ declared her daughter. ‘From Frozen.’

Lori laughed as she led them both into Silver Ghyll Cottage. ‘It’s just over here,’ she said, pointing at the hearth. ‘I can’t seem to find any way of turning it on. There must be an ignitor somewhere …’

Abby frowned at the fireplace, flanked by two neat stacks of wood either side. ‘Er, it’s a log burner.’

A beetroot bloom crept into Lori’s cheeks. ‘I’m from New York City,’ she said by way of explanation.

‘I can show you how to light it, don’t worry.’ Abby crouched down.

Lori marvelled as though she was watching a magic trick, and when amber flames began to flicker behind the glass, she clapped. ‘Thank you so much!’

Abby grinned as she got to her feet. ‘You’re welcome. Right, I better get this little rascal to school,’ she said, glancing round for her daughter.

Rowan was delving about in the top drawer of an oak sideboard on the far wall.

‘Darling, stop that!’ Abby strode over to her. If they didn’t get a move on they were going to be late. But there beside a stack of leaflets on local attractions and a leatherbound visitors’ book, was a converter plug. She plucked it out.

Lori squealed with glee. ‘Jeez, aren’t you an angel.’

‘All sorted!’ Abby grinned despite herself. She glanced around Silver Ghyll’s living room with its old, exposed beams and gleaming flag floors. The place had a welcoming charm like her house had once had.

‘What’s the best way to get to lake Rydal?’ asked Lori with a foreigner’s turn of phrase as Abby corralled Rowan out of the door.

She didn’t really have time for any more questions. There was a tourist information centre in town, for that sort of thing.

‘Can I walk there?’ Lori added.

Abby resisted the urge to reply that you could walk anywhere if you kept going long enough. ‘Um.’ She took in Lori’s expensive-looking, biscuits-and-cream-coloured clothing. She didn’t strike her as being a long-distance hiker. But appearances could conceal hidden depths. ‘It’s about half an hour on foot,’ she said.

Lori’s eyes widened expectantly and Abby stifled a sigh. ‘Go through the park and follow the river Rothay to the packhorse bridge.’

Lori’s gaze didn’t leave hers, as though she was listening to a fairy tale, not a set of directions.

‘Cross over the beck, then follow the track to the lake shore. You can’t miss it.’

‘Let me write this down …’ Lori patted her cardigan’s pockets as though a Biro could have stowed away in its cashmere folds.

Abby pursed her lips. Rowan’s fingers wriggled for freedom in her clasp, desperate to explore the undiscovered corners of the house.

‘One second,’ said Lori.

Abby grasped her last grain of patience with the same tenacity as she gripped her daughter’s hand.

‘Here we are,’ said Lori, now poised with a pen and a gold-edged notebook.

The instructions for how to get to the lake were as imprinted on Abby’s mind as her daughter’s name and date of birth, but when was the last time she herself had been down to the water’s edge? she wondered as she ran through the way there once more. How long had it been since she’d wandered along one of the winding pebbly paths, watched the sun’s rays dance on Rydal’s rippled surface, or seen the rosy shimmer of twilight on the river?

Then Rowan tugged on her arm, and yanked her back to the present.

Abby looked down at her wrist and caught sight of the time on her watch: Oh Jesus, they should have set off ten minutes ago.

Rowan skipped alongside her, clutching her Frozen lunchbox, as they hurried down the lane that led to the primary school, and Abby couldn’t help thinking that Lori’s kind words of encouragement must have lifted her daughter’s spirits and made the day seem less daunting. She was thankful – but the same couldn’t be said for herself. Her insides were churning like the river Rothay in a winter storm, and a swell of sadness was bubbling to the surface that she was struggling to suppress.

At the school gates, she hugged Rowan twice, wanting her to feel just as much love as any of the other children. As the teachers beckoned in the new starters, she waved h...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Note to Readers
• Dedication
• Contents
• Prologue
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19
• Chapter 20
• Chapter 21
• Chapter 22
• Chapter 23
• Epilogue
• Clarissa’s Cumberland Rum Nicky
• Acknowledgements
• About the Publisher