Back to the Start

By Sarah Knipping

When Myles gets a call with the news his grandmother has passed away, Ava finds herself packing up a much loved lifestyle in London and moving back home. Old friends and small town niceties are meagre sustenance for Ava's wanderlust as she finds old memories do indeed come back to haunt...Can Ava make the most of her year back home or will the tensions prove to be all too much?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sarah Knipping
• Release date: Sep 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536595222

Sarah Knipping

Born and raised in Wellington, New Zealand Sarah went on to study Classics and Anthropology at Victoria University of Wellington. When this (not so surprisingly) didn’t eventuate into thousands of high paying job offers, she took to travelling the globe. After wandering her way across 37 countries she returned home to NZ to study early childhood education, but her heart pulled her back to Kenya (the favourite of said 37 countries). She took her teaching with her and taught in a school at an orphanage in Nakuru for a year. She always loved to write, and when she returned home to NZ decided it was high time to stop wanting to be a writer and put pen to paper and actually be a writer. She is currently living in Wellington where she teaches under two’s (who are beyond adorable and keep her very much on her toes), drinks a lot of coffee, and spends time with her wonderful family and friends.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

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Ava closed her eyes as she felt the pressure of the plane rattling along the runway. She felt her body get pushed back into her seat and her ears begin to buzz as they began their ascent. Her pulse quickened and her breath started to catch in her throat. The tell-tale signs of panic. She forced herself to calm down. Breathe in. Breathe out.

She turned to look at Myles. His forehead was knotted into a frown of concentration as he ran a pen along a sudoku puzzle. He looked as if he could be sitting anywhere. A café. The living room. On a deck chair facing the ocean.

She reached for his leg, giving it a squeeze. He looked up at her and smiled.

‘Are you nervous?’ His tone was concerned, but surprised. They had been on countless journeys across the globe in the past ten years. ‘You’re usually waving down the flight attendant for bubbles by the time we’re in the air.’

She forced out a laugh. ‘No, I’m not nervous,’ she lied. She looked out the window at the fast-disappearing spread of London city below her. ‘I’ll just miss it, is all.’

Myles leaned over and kissed her cheek. ‘Me too,’ he said.

She smiled but kept her gaze on the retreating view. She felt as if she had left an enormous chunk of herself down in that city somewhere. Ava Harrison, the extrovert, the adventurer, the explorer. Now she found herself returning to a land she had promised she would never see again. She felt the heat rise in her chest again and focused on her breathing. In and out. In and out. She would be OK. It would only be temporary.

1

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Ava took a breath as she slid the key into the door. She felt Myles place his hand on her hip and squeeze. This was it. This was their new home, for the mean-time at least.

The door to the bungalow squeaked on its old hinges as she pushed it open.

‘Ready?’ she asked, turning to face Myles. She knew this was a big moment for him and wondered if she should let him walk in first.

‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’ He smiled at her reassuringly and nudged her across the threshold.

Ava let out a sigh of relief. The room that lay before was small but homely. An L-shaped open-plan room: the kitchen to the right, what could be a dining nook to the left, and a space for a lounge at the back. The old wallpaper was peeling at the edges, but it was light and made the room feel larger than it was.

‘I like it,’ she said, surprised.

Myles laughed as Ava snaked her arms up around his neck and pulled herself in close. ‘I’m glad it suffices,’ he said.

‘It more than suffices. It’s lovely.’

‘It’s small,’ he said.

‘We’re used to small.’ Their apartment in London would have been the equivalent in size to a large bathroom here in New Zealand. ‘Plus, there’s only two of us, how much space do we need?’

‘That’s true. And we are two fairly small people,’ he noted.

‘See. Who needs space!’

‘Thank you,’ Myles said, pulling her in closer and kissing her. Two days’ worth of aeroplane stubble scratched against her chin.

‘Why are you thanking me?’ She nuzzled her forehead against his rough chin.

‘For being so optimistic about all of this.’

‘Life is what you make it. This is just our next adventure.’

He pulled away from her slightly, studying her face. ‘You’re really OK with this?’ he asked.

‘I am really OK with this.’ She kissed him again before turning into the room. ‘Can we see the rest?’

A door opened off the lounge area and lead into a dark hallway. A modest bathroom to the left and a bedroom to the right.

‘It’s really small,’ Myles repeated from behind her as she peered into the bedroom. There was a double bed in the room already that took up the majority of the floor space. It would be a tight squeeze if they wanted to add bedside tables. Lace curtains hung from the windows, letting a twinkle of afternoon light spread across the bed.

‘Is there a wardrobe?’ she asked, not wanting to focus on the size too much.

Myles led her inside and pointed. A single door opened into a single wardrobe.

‘Good thing we don’t own many clothes,’ she remarked.

‘Won’t take us long to unpack, hey?’

‘Not long at all.’ She stifled a frown.

‘But,’ he said, hooking his finger into the front of her jeans and pulling her suggestively into him. ‘There is a bed.’

She laughed, her long blonde curls tickling her shoulders as she tilted her head back. She felt his hands wrap themselves around her waist and his mouth on her neck. She purred at him, encouraging him. His hands slid up under her shirt and grazed her bare back. ‘You’re not squeamish about making love in your grandmother’s bed?’ she asked.

‘It’s my grandmother’s bed or the floor,’ he mumbled into her ear. ‘And I vote we christen our new bedroom right now.’

They both fell backwards onto the bed. He raised himself up and looked down at her.

‘I love you,’ he said. His dark eyes were so sweet, his voice so soft. She knew she would follow him anywhere.

She pulled gently on the hair at the nape of his neck. ‘I love you too,’ she crooned.

Ava woke early. With the jet-lag beginning to get to her and the lace curtains letting in so much light, she had no chance of falling back to sleep. Instead she got up, trying to slip out of bed without waking Myles, who was sprawled face first on the bed. He made a grunting noise as she pulled the covers back over him but kept his eyes shut.

She stepped out into the lounge. The empty space glowed a warm yellow with the morning sun, but the air was heavy with dust. She opened the front door, letting in the breeze and the smell of damp grass. That was something she had missed while they had been away, grass. Their very own grass. It might be small, but they had their own front lawn. Big enough that they could plant an edible garden and set up a table and chairs. She smiled at the idea of weekend brunches in the sun, her and Myles hand in hand, eating homemade pancakes and drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice. Maybe she could get used to this for a while.

Unsure what to do in their empty living room, Ava began opening and shutting the kitchen cupboards. She opened the pantry to find a big cardboard box with a red ribbon wrapped around it. She pulled it out and laid it on the breakfast bar. Written in permanent marker in large letters along the top of the box read, ‘Ava and Myles – Welcome home! We hope this helps you settle in. Megan xxx’.

She opened the box. Inside was a red kettle, two mugs, a box of tea bags and a jar of instant coffee. She grinned. That would help them settle in. So far their kitchen contents consisted of a few crumbs lining the pantry, a battered-looking saucepan and frying pan, and a well-used scrubbing brush under the kitchen sink. She set the kettle up on the bench. The red added a dash of colour to their otherwise white room.

It was only seven in the morning, but Ava thought she would try her chances at finding an open store. Myles liked milk in his coffee, and an early morning walk would be nice. Her backpack was on the living room floor, where she had dumped it last night. She unzipped it and pulled clothes out until she found enough items to constitute an outfit. She glanced at the pile of mess she had just created on the floor and shrugged. She had nothing to do today; she could clean it up later.

She stepped outside. It was cooler than she anticipated, but the clear sky gave promise of a warm day ahead. She walked a few blocks until she reached the main road and glanced left and right. There was a service station to the left. She would go right and see if there was an open convenience store anywhere nearby, and otherwise walk back up to the station.

She lucked out. Two blocks down the main road was a store, and it was open. Buckets of fresh flowers sat outside the door alongside newspaper advertisements.

She nipped into the store.

‘Good morning,’ she said cheerily to a man sitting behind the counter. He looked up over his newspaper and smiled before returning his attention to the news.

The store was small, but there was enough here to fill their pantry with some basics. She smiled to herself as she stumbled upon the brands of her early childhood. Marmite. How many years had it been since she had had real New Zealand Marmite? She grabbed milk, eggs, bread, butter, flour, a jar of jam, a jar of Marmite, a tin of golden syrup, a bottle of orange juice and disposable cups, plates and cutlery. She placed it all on the counter, along with a newspaper, and was about to pay when the flowers at the front door caught her eye once more. Some fresh lilies wouldn’t do their home any harm. She added them to her pile of supplies and handed over the small amount of Kiwi cash she had left in her wallet. She felt buzzed as she made her way back home.

Myles was still asleep when she returned, so Ava set to work. With skills acquired from years of making do with limited resources while travelling, she managed to whip up some pancake batter in one of the disposable cups. She lit the gas burner and dropped butter onto the frying pan and then added batter. She used a plastic knife to lift and flip the pancake. It crumbled into a ball of semi-burnt mess. That was OK. The first pancake was always meant to be a disaster. She scraped its remnants off into the sink and tried again. The next one was better. She ended up with a stack of pancakes that looked pretty close to perfect.

She rummaged in her backpack and pulled a sarong from out of the bottom. She and Myles had bought it while they were holidaying in Bali. The vibrant purple sent her mind reeling back to memories of beachside bar parties and late-night swimming.

She laid it on the floor. Atop the cloth she placed plastic plates, knives and forks. She put jam, golden syrup and butter in the middle. She hit the boil button on the kettle and poured orange juice into plastic cups while she waited. She nipped the top off one of the lilies and used another plastic cup as a vase. She poured hot water over coffee granules, added milk and put the mugs down next to the orange juice. It looked great. Now she just had to wake up her man.

‘Good morning,’ she whispered into Myles’s ear.

He let out a moan and rolled over.

‘Good morning,’ she tried again, lying down next to him and spooning him.

‘Babe, I’m sleeping,’ he groaned.

She kissed his neck. ‘I made breakfast.’

‘I’ll eat it later,’ he said, pulling the duvet up over his head.

‘You have work today, sweetie, you need to get up.’

He opened one eye and looked at her. ‘I forgot about that.’

She scrunched her nose at him sympathetically. ‘There’s coffee. That might help.’

He smiled. ‘If you bring it in here, the smell might be enough to lure me out of my doze.’

She laughed but obliged. Poor Myles had always struggled with mornings. She held the mug under his nose.

‘Alright,’ he surrendered. ‘I’m awake.’ He sat up groggily on the end of the bed, his eyes half open.

Ava picked up his briefs from the floor and tossed them at him. ‘Might want underpants on gorgeous, I’ve got the front door wide open.’

‘They might like what they see,’ he said, giving her a wink as he stepped into them. His eyes might be half closed, but his sense of humour was fully intact.

She led him by the hand into the lounge.

‘Oh my god,’ he said as the food came into sight. ‘How? When?’

She guided him to a spot on the floor. ‘One picnic-before-work breakfast, just for you!’

‘Seriously, how did you do this?’

‘I woke up super early, so I popped out to the shop and got us a few supplies for the pantry,’ she explained. ‘That, plus your sister left us a small present in the pantry.’

Myles smiled lightly. ‘Did she now? And what did she gift us?’

‘A kettle and some tea and coffee.’

‘She couldn’t have found us a couch? Or a table?’ He gestured to the empty room around them.

‘It was thoughtful,’ Ava said, a little defensive on her sister-in-law’s behalf.

Myles laughed and took a sip of the coffee. ‘Ugh. Instant?’

‘Hey. Beggars cannot be choosers, and we, my friend, should be thankful for what we have,’ she scolded.

He smiled. ‘Sorry, you’re right. I’ll put the cranky away, at least until I get to work.’

‘How are you feeling about that?’

‘About work?’ Myles asked, his mouth now full of pancake.

Ava nodded.

‘Apprehension, spiked with a dose of dread.’

‘Oh dear,’ she said, crawling towards him. ‘For that I prescribe pre-work nooky.’ She kissed him gently on the lips, slowly easing herself onto his lap.

‘Now, now, Mrs Harrison,’ he said, his hands already making their way to her bra clasp. ‘I think we had better close that door.’

London 2015

‘I don’t think we should get boxes.’ Myles was standing in their tiny London kitchen and staring into a mug of tea.

Ava looked at him blankly for a moment. ‘Not to point out the obvious, but if we don’t get boxes then lugging a whole flat’s worth of stuff to the storage facility is going to be a bit of a pain in the ass.’

He looked up at her, his dark eyebrows flattening across his brow. ‘I’m just thinking out loud,’ he said. This tended to be his polite precursor to something he had already made his mind up on. ‘But I’m wondering if storage isn’t our best bet.’

‘OK,’ Ava said carefully, trying to piece together what might be going on in his mind. ‘What do you suggest is the better option?’

‘Let’s sell it all,’ he said, standing up straight.

‘Sell all our stuff?’

He nodded vigorously. ‘Yes. Let’s sell all our stuff.’

‘Myles, we would have nothing to come back to,’ she said, thinking that was fairly obvious but voicing it anyway.

‘Precisely.’

‘OK, you need to go backwards and fill me in on your train of thought here.’

‘We’re going back to New Zealand, yes?’ he asked, coming close to her and peering down into her face.

Ava nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘We’re going to be there for a whole year, yes?’

She nodded again.

‘It’s going to cost money to keep our stuff in storage, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘We always said we would like to try a new city. Somewhere in South America, maybe?’

‘We did,’ she agreed carefully.

‘So let’s sell up here. Let’s sell the stuff. Sell the flat. Cut all our ties to London so that when we’re ready to take our next adventure, we’ll be free to go anywhere!’ He put the mug on the counter and grabbed her hands in his.

She looked at her husband and recognised an all-too-familiar look. Glee. That light in his eyes that always shone the strongest when they were planning a new adventure to a new destination.

’We had been thinking that we had lingered too long in London,’ she said gingerly. ‘It would make sense to tie it all off now and then start anew for the next adventure.’

Myles was grinning as she spoke.

‘I suppose it makes sense,’ she said.

He made a screaming noise and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her up into the air. She kissed his forehead and smiled.

‘You don’t seem one hundred percent convinced,’ he said, putting her down and hugging her close to him.

She shook her head. ‘No, it makes sense. It all makes sense. It’s just going so fast.’ She took a sip of his tea. ‘I know we’ve been here forever. It’s just that the move has come all of a sudden.’

Ava watched as a sad, cold look came across her husband’s face and instantly felt horrible. His grandmother had just died, and here she was whining about having to pack up her lavish holiday lifestyle.

‘I know this is all so hard for you,’ she said, taking his face in her hands. ‘Look, I can settle all this up. I can sell the furniture. I can stay here while we put the house on the market and sort all that out. Then I can come out to meet you.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I need you there with me.’

‘Myles, I don’t think we can get all this ready in time. Storage would be feasible, but selling everything we own - that’s going to take time.’

‘So we take our time,’ he said decidedly. ‘We sell it all at the first price offered to speed things up. But we do it together.’

She looked at him seriously. ‘Myles, you’ll miss the funeral. You go. I’ll come after you.’

He shook his head again. ‘No. We end our London chapter together and we start our New Zealand chapter together.’

She looked into his eyes. He looked so determined, so sure. ‘OK,’ she agreed, a little reluctantly. ‘We had better call a realtor, then.’

Ava stood in the empty house. The sink was filled with dirty plastic dishes. The living room floor was strewn with the mess of empty backpacks. Myles had changed into a slightly crinkled suit, and Ava had waved him off at the bus stop. The next chapter of her life had begun, and Ava had absolutely no idea what to do with it.

She walked through to the bathroom and assessed her reflection. Her blonde curls hung tightly around her face this morning, making her freckles stand out even more than usual. She ran a little eyeliner across her lids and frowned at herself in the mirror. Myles had always referred to her curvy outline as her ‘bodacious bod,’ but sometimes Ava couldn’t help but feel a little on the chunky side.

She sighed and gave herself a hard look. ‘That’s enough of that,’ she scolded. ‘Let’s get on with things, shall we?’ But she could feel her mood dropping, fast.

She had yet to organise a local cellphone so had no way of contacting Elliot, the one friend she had in Wellington. And with Myles at work starting his next venture, she felt completely alone and a little bit pointless. She was a woman used to new surroundings. She could adapt to anything. Language barriers, cultural differences, none of it stood in her way. She was a woman of the world and she could make herself at home anywhere. Except for here. Haunted memories and ancient regrets hung over her in this city.

She shook herself, trying to clear her head. She needed a plan. She needed a project. This was where they were, and there was no point in wishing her life away. She had to find a way to be happy here and she had to start now. She looked around the room. Furniture! She would begin with furniture.

2

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Ava decided to walk. The sunny sky had persevered and the day was heating up spectacularly. After wracking her brain for geographical memories of the city she headed off in the direction she thought was the nearest suburb. After what felt like forever and a lot of yearning for the grace of Google Maps, Ava found herself in the busy main street. People of every nationality bustled around her, on their way to work, to school, to do the shopping. Being amongst people instantly made her feel better.

She stopped at an ATM first, and remedied her cash situation. She stuffed the bills into her wallet, smiling at how brightly coloured they looked.

With a pretty light itinerary ahead of her, Ava decided on getting a coffee to begin her day. To her surprise she found a small, vegan-certified café not far down the road. Intrigued, she entered. The café was small and almost empty. A man with long dreadlocks sat reading in one corner and a curvy blonde woman sat on the other side breast-feeding a baby while simultaneously sipping a mug of tea and reading a magazine.

There was a large cabinet next to the counter. Despite her breakfast of pancakes not long ago, Ava felt her stomach growl at the sight of all the food. She ordered a black coffee and a very sweet-looking piece of baklava. The girl at the counter looked friendly, with wire-rimmed glasses and a thick head of frizzy hair. Still unfamiliar with the area, Ava decided to pick her brain.

‘You don’t know where I could buy some furniture, do you?’ she asked.

The girl raised an eyebrow at her. ‘That’s an interesting thing to be looking for at ten in the morning.’

Ava smiled and explained how they were new in town and living in an empty house.

‘There’s not much up this end of town,’ the girl said. ‘You’d probably have to get a bus into the city for a broader selection.’

‘I’m hoping for cheap and cheerful,’ Ava said, thinking about her bank account. She had a healthy savings put away, but considering they only intended to be in Wellington for a year or so, she didn’t want to over-invest in furniture.

‘We don’t have Ikea or anything like that, if that’s what you mean?’ the girl asked. ‘You could try The Warehouse?’

Ava pursed her lips in thought. She had all but forgotten about the store, but faintly recollected it being New Zealand’s answer to Target or Tesco’s. She knew it would have enough there to stock up the house. Yet it still seemed so wasteful for such a short amount of time. ‘What about second-hand stores?’

The girl’s faced perked up. ‘Well, that we have. This street has heaps of them. Some pretty cool stuff inside too.’

‘Perfect,’ Ava resolved. ‘Second-hand house furnishing it is!’

‘Sounds fun,’ the girl said, handing her coffee and baklava across to her.

‘It does, doesn’t it?’

Ava selected a seat next to the window and people-watched as she sipped her coffee. She felt her spirits rising higher and higher. She had coffee. She had shared a conversation with a friendly local. And she had a day’s shopping ahead of her. Not too shabby for her first full day in Wellington.

Just a few shops down, Ava happened upon her first second-hand store. The outside was stacked with beer crates, each piled full of paperback novels and old vinyl. It looked like a junk shop. But there was something about it that was endearing. She made a mental post-it note and kept walking until she stumbled upon a quirky looking store. This one definitely had potential. She walked inside. A bell over the top of the door announced her entrance. A short woman dressed in a peasant skirt and blouse bounded out from behind a door.

‘Good morning, dear,’ she said in a hearty voice.

‘Well good morning to you too,’ Ava beamed. She relished human interaction. It made her blood pump and her spirit