Was she really going to admit to this? Francine would think it silly, wouldn’t she? Any lasting connection they had could be reduced to a concentrated version of life, forty-nine wishes that never really came true. It all seemed a bit daft, now that she was preparing to say it aloud.
“It’s the anniversary of the day we first kissed. That day he took me on a boat to the Brisons.”
Francine smiled at the memory. “Never took you as the nostalgic type. What made you think of that now, after all these years?”
Elizabeth shook her head. Suddenly it felt hard to breathe, and she knew she just had to say it. “I think about it every year.”
Francine glanced down at her hand, brushed her thumb against her wedding ring, loose on a thinning finger. “A love that never disappeared, eh, even if he did.”
“Something like that.” Francine reached out, took Elizabeth’s hand in her own. “You think I’m silly, don’t you?”
Memories of the past made Francine chuckle. “I’ve always thought you were silly, Elizabeth, but it’s got nothing to do with you loving Tom.” Her smile showed that she was joking. “I wonder if he still thinks about you too. I bet he does.”
“I know he does,” Elizabeth said, before she had time to censor herself. “At least I always thought he did.”
“What do you mean?”
Here goes, she thought. “Because he never actually disappeared. He comes back every year.”
Francine shook her head with disbelief. “What? Have you finally lost the plot?”
“I’m serious.”
“Elizabeth, darling, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him for what now?” she said, pausing to think. “It must be fifty years.”
“I know we haven’t, but he still comes. I know it’s him. He leaves me gifts on the doorstep.”
Francine was quiet, trying to comprehend what she had just heard. “What does he bring?” Her tone suggested she was humoring her friend.
“Don’t say it like that, as if I’ve gone mad. Every year he brings me a blue crocus, just like he promised me he would. He always writes me a wish too, something we would have done together. And if you don’t believe me, I’ve got every one of those forty-nine wishes at home. It’s him, I’m telling you. I even saw him once or twice.”
Something changed in Francine’s tone, realizing the seriousness with which Elizabeth spoke. “Okay, okay,” she said. “I believe you.”
“Good.”
Francine sat back in her chair, her mouth hanging limp and wide with disbelief. “Didn’t he get married?”
Elizabeth closed her eyes, felt the same spark of guilt and jealousy that always stirred when she thought of his wife. “He did.”
“And he still holds a candle for you?” she asked of nobody, shaking her head. “Cheeky old bugger.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Well,” said Francine, looking less than pleased with what she had learned. “I don’t know what it’s like, but it’s obviously done you no good. Look how upset you are.”
Elizabeth pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped her eyes. “I’m not upset because he brings me presents every year.”
“Then why are you upset?”
“Because this year, he forgot.”
Francine drummed her nails against the brushed metal table. After a moment she shook her head. “Unlikely, if he never forgot before. Elizabeth, I hate to remind you, but none of us are getting any younger. I’ve just had a hip replaced, and your fingers are full of arthritis.”
“What are you saying?”
“Only that you don’t hand deliver a gift to a girl you were in love with when you were eighteen, for forty-nine years, even when you’re married to somebody else, and then not bother for the fiftieth.”
Elizabeth had been so preoccupied with how hurt she was, she’d never stopped to wonder why he had failed to deliver the present. “You don’t think . . .” The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as the thought came to her, her mouth too dry to finish the sentence. Until today, Tom looked to her mind like the boy in the only photograph she had of him, but he’d be sixty-eight now. People she knew had died younger than that.
“Only one way to find out,” Francine said. “Why don’t you try to get in touch?”
“Well, I have his phone number, but what if his wife answers? Or his daughter?” Elizabeth had always kept his address and phone number written down, but she had never used either out of respect for the fact she knew he had a family. “How would I explain who I am?”
“I’d say that doesn’t really matter if it comes to the worst. Just tell them you’re an old friend from Porthsennen.”
With some regret, Elizabeth realized that the truth was not all that different.
* * *
Her heart raced as she hurried along the road back to her cottage, the keys jangling in her pocket. Her fingers fumbled to find them, and after some effort she opened the front door. Cookie arrived at her feet, his cue the sound of the lock, his fur warm and his purring loud as he rubbed at her ankles.
“I haven’t got time for your nonsense now,” she said, nudging him away. Her fingers wouldn’t seem to grip the handle of the cupboard alongside the fireplace as she crouched down, too stiff from the cold, too arthritic from age. Taking a breath to calm herself, she focused, managed to get it open and pull out the basket containing every one of Tom’s wishes. They scattered like autumn leaves on the floor. “I’m so stupid,” she told Cookie. “How could I not have even considered it?”
All her life she had been plagued by the thoughts of “what if?” What if they could have been together? What if they had never argued that night? What if Tom had never gone to the lighthouse? Now the only “what if” that mattered was whether something might have happened to him. They had had so many chances to put things right and never taken a single one of them. They had been so stupid. Panic rose as she rifled through the little blue notes, unable to find what she was looking for. And then, like a gem shining in the dirt, she saw the white piece of paper with his address and telephone number. Snatching it up into her sweaty palm, she moved across the room and grabbed the phone.
Her fingers shook as she dialed the number, looking at her face in the mirror as she waited for the call to connect. Her features had changed so much, grown so old. Why hadn’t she trusted her feelings, that sense that he would never have let her down? After a while she realized that she was still waiting, that the call hadn’t connected. As she looked down at the little scrap of paper, she noticed that it was an old number from the 1970s, so she pulled out her phone book to find the new area code for London, before dialing again. Still she got nothing, so dialed instead for the operator. After a moment the call connected.
“Operator, how can I help?”
“Hello,” Elizabeth began. “I’m trying to reach a number, but the call won’t go through. Can you check it for me?” Elizabeth gave the number, then waited as the operator made whatever necessary checks. Gazing about the room she saw her past, felt the cold of the first night she had returned to this cottage with Tom, recalled the things they had done in his room. The pain of the memory forced her eyes shut tight, the earliest tears welling in the corners. Then a noise on the line.
“I’m afraid that number is no longer in use.”
“If I give you an address?”
“I can try. What is it?” Elizabeth gave the last known address that she had for Tom, no clue if he was even still living there. What other choice did she have? If Kate were talking to her she might have been able to look him up on that Internet thing, but without her daughter’s help she had no idea how to do it herself. “I’m really sorry,” the operator said. “The number for that address is ex-directory. I can’t help you, I’m afraid.”
Her body crumpled into the nearest seat, the receiver still clutched in her hand. Too much time had passed, too much life lived apart. Cookie gazed at her, indifferent to her pain. It had always seemed easy to live here on the fa
rthest reaches of the UK coast, miles away from Tom, when she knew that he would be coming back, even if it was only once a year. But what now? To miss this day meant he was never coming again. His absence implied that he might already have . . . “No,” she said to herself, shaking her head. “Don’t think that way.” Surely she would have felt it, would have somehow subconsciously known if he had died. And as she had had no such feeling, it meant there was still a chance that she could find him. She’d done it once before, so why not again?
Her steps thundered up the wooden staircase, her feet moving faster than they had in years. The suitcase smelled old and musty as she pulled it out from under the bed, dust making her sneeze. She hadn’t used it in almost a year, not since she had last visited Kate. The trip when she’d told her daughter the truth. After the initial buzz of activity, she found herself out of breath, sitting on the edge of the bed, surrounded by clothes, toiletries thrown in the case at all manner of angles amenable to leakage. The thought that she was being stupid crossed her mind, but she pushed the idea away.
“Get it together, Elizabeth,” she told herself. “You’re not going to make it to London like this.”
The sun was warmer as she left her cottage behind, traveling in a taxi to the train station. And although she was relieved to finally be on her way, the fear of what she was heading toward almost made her turn back. All those times she’d told herself to go to the door when he delivered her gifts, and all those times she hadn’t. The same fears gripped her now; what if it wasn’t the same? What if she felt differently? What if too much time had passed and really there was nothing left? Those fears were still there, but now a different idea overpowered them, driving her forward. What if they had shared a whole life together? What if he did still love her, despite the fact they hadn’t? And perhaps most important of all, what if they still had time for just one more wish?
Then
When she awoke from a fitful sleep, early before the sun had broken the monotony of the dark sky, she left her bedroom to find an atmosphere of regret hanging over the house. It was heavier than any winter sea mist that would soon embrace their part of the Cornish coastline. Her parents were still in bed, and she found that she didn’t want to be there alone. Grabbing her bag and a coat, she headed from the house, down toward the sea.
The view that greeted her was quite different from the endless black of the ocean that had tried to claim her mother only hours before. Sunshine graced the coastal road, trimmed with thatched cottages and granite roofs as first light broke the night. Gulls swooped and cawed overhead, circling above fishing boats stuffed with pollack and mackerel. Drifts of smoke rose from the chimneys of fishermen’s cottages, wives warming hearths to welcome their husbands home.
“Miss Davenport, would you do an old man a favor and come down here?” Elizabeth looked up to see Old Man Cressa. He was standing at the edge of his boat, the Princess of the Sea. It was a vessel built for one man, a lonely life of early starts, his working day over before most had begun. Two of his front teeth were missing, yet his smile was only enhanced by the depleted sum of incisors and the overgrown beard that skimmed the center of his chest. “I heard about what happened last night,” he said as he shook his head. His voice was soft, and seemed even softer as he asked, “How’s your mother doing this morning?”
“Much better, thank you. She was sleepwalking because of a fever.” He nodded, unquestioning of her lie. “Was the catch good?” she probed, changing the subject.
“Not up to much, if the truth be told. Last night’s storm stirred up the waters. The weather that will feed a farmer will starve a fisherman. Seems summer’s in for an early finish.” He tossed her the edge of a net, still wet with seaweed caught in the knots. He motioned for her to pull tight while he set about bundling the other end into a bucket. He nodded to her satchel draped across her body. “Isn’t it a little fresh for you to be out drawing at this time of the day? Shouldn’t you be at home helping your mother?”
“Perhaps,” she agreed. “But it’s about last night that I’m here. I was looking for Mr. Hale. Tom,” she added, feeling a little foolish using his first name, as if they were friends. She didn’t want to confuse Old Man Cressa with the implication she was looking for Tom’s father. Everybody knew him. He was the local drunk, could often be found slumped on a bench, or sheltering by the moored boats. That was why her father had been disappointed when he’d discovered that Tom was a Hale last night. His idea of what it meant to be a Hale just didn’t fit with Tom saving his wife. “Is he here?”
“Still out at the moment.” He nodded toward the water. “Why don’t you come back later, once the catch is in?”
“I’d rather wait, if that’s okay.” It was only right to thank him again for what he had done, but Elizabeth also knew it wasn’t just that. It was something she couldn’t describe; thinking of him made her smile, made her wonder what it might feel like to have him smile back at her. What would it be like to meet with him in his own life, rather than embroiled in the momentary turmoil of her own?
“Then you’d better get yourself into the lifeboat station. You can keep warm in there until he’s back. Doors are open.” He looked over at the gently rolling sea. The view was better now, the light already stronger. “Shouldn’t be too long.”
* * *
Elizabeth bid farewell to Old Man Cressa and did as she was told, entering the lifeboat station via the heavy front door and down the steps. It was dark inside, quite different from when she’d last been here, little more than a child then, watching the launch of the Susan Ashley as part of the Spring Fete, a celebration of winter passing and the promise of calmer waters. But the smell was unchanged: the scent of sea and brass, old rope, the gentle hum of the ocean underfoot. It felt safe, and strong. Elizabeth could remember seeing Tom at that fete, dressed in an oversize yellow wax jacket and a hat too large for his head, which kept slipping over his eyes. He was climbing the ropes, hauling himself on deck, along with a vast number of other kids who were there to celebrate. Tom’s father was a volunteer then, part of Coxswain Nicholas’s crew. Yet she could remember her own father making a comment, something about the Hale boys being as troublesome as their father. Elizabeth had thought it looked as if Tom was enjoying himself, his little brother Daniel too. Everything changed for the Hales after he died. Everything, she supposed, except her father’s opinion.
How much time had passed before she heard the door to the lifeboat station open? His feet on the steps? She was so lost in thought, she had missed his boat coming in. Tom appeared, wearing a blue sweater, worn and pulled at the cuff, a little large on his frame. His hair was wet, like it had been last night, falling in wavy clumps across his forehead. With feet as heavy as lead she stumbled from her chair, feeling awkward and clumsy as he arrived.
“Old Man Cressa said you were looking for me,” he said, seeming confused. “Everything all right?”
Her fingernails pressed into her palms as she clung to her satchel, taking a step forward. “Yes. I just wanted to say thank you for what you did. You risked your life and saved my mother’s.” While she had been talking to Old Man Cressa she had seen the seaweed tarnishing the beach, the driftwood that had washed up in last night’s storm. It must have been a squally sea into which he had chosen to throw himself.
“And I’d do it again if the need arose.” He stepped out of his waders and went to slip his feet into his shoes, only to realize that they belonged to her father. “I’m sorry,” he said, motioning to the brown brogues. “I was intending to return them.”
“It’s okay. He doesn’t wear them.” Her satchel hung heavily between them as she offered it to him. After a moment he stepped forward and took it.
“What’s this?”
“Your clothes. I dried them for you.” In the early hours of the morning when she couldn’t sleep, she’d gotten up and hung them over an airer in front of the dying fire in the drawing room. Now they smelled faintly of soot. He took the bag and peered insid
e, before pulling them out and tucking them under his arm.
“Thank you,” he said. He set them down and knelt to lace his shoe. “How is your mother today?”
“She’ll be fine,” she said, trying to soften the edge of mistruth. Lying to Tom felt awkward after what he’d done. It was a strange feeling to her, that disconnect in her loyalties; it was impossible to tell Tom the truth without betraying her family, and yet despite that understanding she found herself wanting to tell him everything.
“That’s good then. But you know, it wouldn’t have mattered to wait to return these.” He motioned to his clothes. “It’s chilly out this morning. I reckon summer’s nearly over. You’ll catch a cold.”
“Well, it’s just that I was hoping to get you alone.” He smiled at that, appeared surprised. “Oh,” she said, realizing the implications of what she’d just said, feeling heat flood her face. “I didn’t mean it like that. No, honestly,” she said when he began laughing. “I’m engaged to be married.”
He looked down at her hand, becoming mock serious. “I don’t see a ring. Doesn’t seem like a fair arrangement to me, to agree to marry somebody and not get a ring. Especially if the man is a doctor.”
A sense of disappointment washed over her, the realization that everybody knew she was supposed to marry James. She liked him well enough, but the truth was that while she’d been quite impressed by his stories about London when he’d first arrived in Porthsennen, now that she’d heard all those, sometimes twice, she wasn’t sure what there was left that she liked so much anymore.
“Well, what would you know?” she asked, defensively.
“I know a bit,” he said, still smiling.
“Asked a lot of girls to marry you, have you?”
“Not yet I haven’t,” he told her, laughing. “But when I do, I’ll make sure I do it with a ring.”
Little Wishes Page 3