Here is a further instalment of my story of Jay, a woman with a new identity is now living in the seaside village of Oxhope.It hasn’t yet been revealed why she’s there, or what happened in her past that has meant she had to start a new life, but she’s beginning to settle into it. She’s begun to make friends, including two women similar in age to her, when shockingly they find the body of a murdered woman, and are intensively questioned by the police. Jay didn’t know the victim, but had seen her at a music festival at the local pub where she had seemed very interested in a local band, Off With Her Head.Despite the trauma, Jay tries to carry on with her life:
Jay felt somewhat cheered by this friendly encounter and stepped out into warm sunshine. She would go back home, get a bottle of water, get a rug, and head out to find something to sketch with the pencils she’d just bought along with the paints. She would put aside her anxiety, grit her teeth and get on with this new life.
She’d allowed herself to become overwrought – the mysterious murder almost in front of her eyes had been shocking and horrific, but it was nothing to do with her. She’d been peripherally involved in the aftermath, that was all, but she’d been supported by new friends and kind people.
She had a new life, in a new and rather lovely place, with the potential for –
“Jay!”
Em almost embraced her as she ran out of a little alley which emerged onto the high street.
“Oh god, I’m sorry, Jay, I was thinking about the drink I was going to buy in the shop, are you ok!”
Em was in shorts and a vest, red in the face and panting.
“Good grief, Em, running in this weather!”
They stood and chatted for a few moments, and when Em suggested meeting in the café by the quarry for lunch, once she’d been home and showered, Jay agreed it was a splendid idea and headed on to drop her new art things at home.
Maybe it was thinking about what she might paint, about the different subjects this village offered, the quirky houses, the river, the buildings, even this narrow street with houses on either side – wherever her thoughts were, they were not on the time a door had opened in this narrow street and –
In a frightening replay, the same door opened and a woman rushed out and cannoned into Jay, tripping her so she tumbled onto the road.
Lois Elsden 