Welcome to My World. Miranda Dickinson

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СКАЧАТЬ mane and hold on with all your might, it will be the most thrilling ride you’ll ever have.’ Grandma Langton had lived in a tiny cottage on the edge of Dartmoor, where Harri and her parents would visit during the summer holidays. As a little girl, Harri had liked nothing better than to hold tightly on to Grandma’s hand as they battled against the elements to climb the hill behind the cottage and gaze out across the windswept moor to where the wild ponies grazed. Even as a small child, she’d appreciated and envied the beautiful creatures’ freedom, walking and cantering wherever they pleased. The thought of jumping on one of their backs and taking off across the wildly undulating moor towards distant hills was at once impossibly exciting and ridiculously scary, but Harri longed to be as carefree as they appeared to be. As for Grandma, her own ‘thrilling ride’ had come to an abrupt halt when Harri was eleven – life throwing her from its back for the last time.

      Life, or fate – or whatever you chose to call it – had certainly taken Harri for more than one breathless ride over her twenty-eight years – although it had to be said that most had been brutally scary rather than exhilarating. Losing one parent to cancer was bad enough; losing both was cruel in the extreme, not least because her mother’s malignant tumour was diagnosed while her father was enduring his last weeks of life. As Dad lay on the sofa in the family home, too weak to move, but still somehow able to smile and joke (which he accomplished with aplomb right up until he finally succumbed to unconsciousness), Mum made two sets of funeral arrangements – one for him, one for her – sitting at the kitchen table making copious lists for Harri ‘for when the time arrives’.

      Dad’s cancer had taken him slowly, a long-drawn-out process over nearly six years, which crumpled the once strong and vital six-foot-three former rugby player into a pitiful heap of skin and bone arranged painfully across the old Dralon settee in the living room. In contrast, Mum’s illness took hold at lightning speed: five and a half months from the diagnosis to her funeral at St Mary’s, Stone Yardley’s parish church. Five months after burying her husband, Mum went to join him and Harri was alone in the world. Of course, she had friends. Viv and Stella rallied round, cooking meals (Viv) and getting her out of the house to go shopping or for walks (Stella), whilst Auntie Rosemary came to stay for three months, helping Harri to put the family home on the market and, eventually, find the tiny, ivy-covered cottage that was to become her own, bought with the money left to her by her parents.

      Her father’s illness meant that holidays were spent near to home or at least a major hospital: the Lake District was about the furthest they dared travel and this was only because they had family living in Kendal, should an emergency arise. Towards the end, Langton family holidays became more like sofa transfers: Dad carefully transported from home in their old red Volvo to a different living room three hours away – the only difference being the mountain views from the window.

      When Harri met Rob, just over a year later, she found herself returning to the Lake District for summer holidays. Rob viewed camping as ‘the purest form of holidaying’. Understanding Rob’s long-held passion for all things outdoors was part and parcel of loving him, as far as Harri was concerned. His father had been a scout master for years so Rob and his brother, Mark, spent weekends and holidays under canvas from an early age. When his father died five years ago, following the pursuits he had learned from him took on a whole new significance for Rob. It was almost as if being outdoors brought him closer to his father’s memory. Watching him pitch a tent, knot guy ropes and make a fire was strangely comforting for Harri – Rob’s capability and protectiveness made her feel safe.

      ‘If he’s so fond of camping, why don’t you go to one of these new glamping sites, with yurts and wood-burning stoves?’ Stella suggested during one of their many coffee-shop outings. ‘Or do it somewhere warm, like France?’

      ‘It just wouldn’t be his sort of thing,’ Harri replied, stirring her cappuccino with a wooden stirrer. ‘And actually, that’s OK.

      It’s just part of who he is – like me with my travel book addiction. I don’t feel I have to like everything he likes and neither does he with me. We’re settled and secure enough with each other to be able to have different interests. When we go camping it’s like he feels he’s fending for us, I think. It’s that whole “protective caveman” instinct.’

      Stella’s eyes lit up. ‘I have to admit, it’s quite sexy when guys get like that – all rugged and strong.’

      ‘Oh yes. I have no complaints there,’ Harri agreed as they clinked coffee cups in a mutual toast.

      ‘So I bet your beloved likes that Ray Mears bloke, doesn’t he?’

      Oh, yes. To say Rob worshipped at the well-worn survival boots of Ray would be putting it mildly. When his father was alive, Rob had taken him on several of Mr Mears’ bushcraft weekends – something Harri was hugely relieved she hadn’t been invited on. Camping in the great outdoors was one thing; eating bugs and making shelters out of twigs and tarpaulin was definitely above and beyond the call of duty.

      So, whilst Rob would indulge in copies of Survival Monthly or his extensive collection of Ray Mears DVDs, Harri knew she could always escape into the welcoming pages of Condé Nast Traveller and Lonely Planet magazine – and, of course, her favourite books on Venice and the Veneto.

      For as long as she could remember, Harri’s imagination had been her sanctuary; she could escape into its endless possibil ities whenever she wanted to get away. As a little girl she would dream herself cycling past tulip fields in Holland, or twirling round an opulent Viennese ballroom in a beautiful gown to the swirling strains of Strauss; in her teens she would rollerskate along the promenade at Miami Beach, or spot multi-hued parrots in Brazilian rainforests; by the time she reached her twenties, she would be backpacking across Australia, bridge-swinging in New Zealand’s South Island, or riding galloping horses through the tide along Mexican beaches.

      But Venice had always towered head and shoulders above the rest of her dreams. Its colour, opulence and uniqueness captured her heart and fired her imagination – her parents’ own dyed-in-the-wool romanticism alive and well, and coursing through her own veins.

      When her parents were resting, or she just needed five minutes to herself, escaping was as easy as closing her eyes or opening a travel magazine. For a few moments, she could go wherever her heart desired. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t actually jump on a plane and visit these places; it was enough to imagine herself there. Where others would choose chick-lit, crime thrillers or historical drama to provide their escape, Harri chose a travel book. No matter where it was, as long as she could learn something new about the world, Harri eagerly consumed its contents, each new glimmering scrap of information adding to the growing travel library in her mind.

      Fuelled by her daydreams, Harri’s longing to travel grew stronger as the years passed. The true extent of her desire to see the world was something she confessed to nobody but Ron Howard, the large ginger and white cat that had appeared in her front garden one December morning as a small, shivering kitten and stayed with Harri ever since. Harri had never considered herself a cat person, yet there was something she understood immediately about the tiny stray trying to shelter under the birdbath from the fast-falling snow. He was like her: adrift in a new, unfamiliar place, seeking refuge from the winter cold. Harri had not long moved into her cottage and was still feeling a stranger in her own home, surrounded by someone else’s curtains, carpets and paint colours. From the moment he made his impromptu arrival in Harri’s life, Ron Howard was a soul mate. Unlike Rob, Stella or anyone else, he didn’t mind watching awful foreign soap operas like Santa Barbara, or endless travel documentaries on cable. He liked nothing better than to curl up on Harri’s lap, purring or snoring loudly through hours of other people’s experiences. There was something uniquely comforting about a creature that required nothing more than food and fuss; no expectations, no conditions, no arguments – simply feed me and love me.

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