The Lady of The Lake

New Beginnings

The dark mahogany door loomed before me, the brass knocker daring me to touch it. The squeal of the tires on the wet gravel road signalled the hurried exit if my father, who had moments before kissed my forehead and told me to be a good girl.

My father was off with his new wife and my half-sister to London; it’s not that he didn’t love me. He did, but jobs were near non-existent in Scotland never mind Glasgow, so he was going to London were the job market was better. But being in my last year of high school and in the process of applying for Universities, moving to London wouldn’t be possible. So here I am standing shivering outside my grandmother’s house, a women whom I have never met.

 I reach up a tentative hand to knock, but there was not need as the door swung open groaning in protest, revealing a small woman with long silver braided hair entwined with beads and feathers. Her familiar cat like green eyes looked me up and down, searching the contours of my face making my neck and cheeks tinge pink. Suddenly she grinned revealing a set of straight pearly whites setting me at ease.

“Elaine, how wonderful to finally meet my granddaughter!” her voice was smooth and kind with the East Lothian lilt that I lacked.

“It’s Elle” I reminded her

“Yes, yes of course, your father mentioned. Elaine is much prettier but young people will insist” she turned and scurried inside leaving me standing in the piercing wind.

“Come along dear, I will show you your room and after that we will have a wee cup of tea and a biscuit eh?” her voice muffled by the distance.

Stepping inside and shutting the heavy wooden door behind me, basking in the warmth of central heating and the scent of vanilla. I retraced my grandmothers footsteps through the dim narrow hallways only found in old houses, through the hot steamy kitchen until I caught up with her standing outside a door at the back of the house.

“Now I did try and sprouse it up a bit, gave it a new lick of paint but the truth is it hasn’t been used since I bought the house five years ago.”

She opened the newly varnished door to reveal a sizeable but rather plain bedroom, there was a double bed, a wardrobe, a desk and to my delight a window seat overlooking the back garden.

“I know it’s a bit plain right now, but I will take you to the shops to pick out stuff tomorrow”  

She took my suitcase from my hands and wheeled it into the room leaving it by the wardobe and shut the door on her way out.

“Now time for some tea and a natter I believe” she chirped, clapping her hands together.

We entered once again into the well-lit, almost uncomfortably hot kitchen. She gestured to the old scratched wooden table for me to sit. Taking a seat, I glanced around me drinking in my surroundings. Sunny yellow walls, beige cupboards and several mounted plates cluttered the kitchen making it feel homely and lived in. The whistling of the kettle brought my attention to the cooker and my gran who was humming to herself, her back turned to me whilst she poured the tea. My phone buzzed in my pocket alerting me that I had a text from my best friend Heather who had cried and said goodbye not even 2 hours ago.

Hez wrote: Missing you already! Get your arse back here!

Typing a quick reply, I could feel the tears threatening to spill.

Elle wrote: wish I could, but you will be fine. You have that hot boyfriend of yours, remember?

The response was almost within seconds                                    

Hez wrote: he’s already doing everything he can to make me feel better ;)

Chuckling, I locked my phone and slid it into my pocket just as Gran sat the steaming cup of tea in front of me.

Sliding into the chair opposite me, she proceeded to watch me over the rim of her mug whilst sipping her tea. After a laboriously long ten minutes, she put her mug down and brought up the inevitable.

“You look just like her.”

It was not the first time I had been told I looked like her. It was a granted since I shared half of her genes; she was after all my birth mother. But that doesn’t mean she was my mum, no she gave up that right when she left us when I was only a day old.

“Doesn’t mean I am her” I replied with more venom than I had intended.

She flinched immediately making me guilty that I had snapped her, but in the end if we were going to live with each other she had to learn that my birth mother was a sore subject with me. Never to be brought up.

Draining the last dregs of my tea, I pushed my chair back and stood to leave.

“I suppose I better get started on unpacking then.”

Returning to my room, I collapsed exhausted onto my new bed and thought of home. Tears spilled over and ran down my cheeks leaving trails of mascara inevitably staining the white pillows. I knew I was being a sulky teenager but it felt good to cry, eventually I must have tired myself out and drifted off into unconsciousness.