A sensation of fear and foreboding hit her, and she recognized it as the same fear she’d had on the night he left Porthsennen. When she watched him walk away that night, she had never believed it would have been forever. Had she known then what she knew now, how differently might she have done things?
“Are you going to tell me what happened? Why you didn’t come this year?”
It was hard to watch him as he walked away, his shoulders hunched and frame slight, like seeing a man she had never known. Time, she saw, had betrayed them. Her hand shook as she took an envelope from his outstretched hand, already able to see the letterhead was from a hospital. By the time she reached the end of the letter her throat was sore with emotion, as if there were a lump of pain that she could neither swallow nor bring up.
“An oncologist?”
He nodded.
“But isn’t that . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to verbalize her thoughts. Her mouth was painfully dry, unable to articulate anything she wanted to say.
“Cancer? Yes. They tell me I’ve got it in the lung.”
“Oh, Tom, no. Don’t tell me any more.”
To his credit he was quiet for a moment. The sun was setting, and the kind light of late afternoon, which softened skin and muted age, dappled through the window. After a while he dared join her, resting his hand on her shoulder, and this time she didn’t flinch.
“I have to go on Monday to see the specialist.”
“Maybe they’re wrong,” Elizabeth offered. “It’s possible. Doctors are wrong all the time.”
“I don’t think so, Elizabeth. Not this time, at least.”
“I can’t believe it,” she said, turning once again to look outside. A man walked by, talking on his phone, smiling and laughing. Life, she thought, was cruel, and shorter than anybody realized.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I wish the news was different. I hope you see now why I couldn’t come. I would never have managed the trip on my own this year.”
“I do.” A look crossed his face, one she thought she recognized. “What is it?”
“I was going to ask you something, but I don’t know whether it would be right.”
“Well, that never stopped you before.” Things had eased a little then, a good feeling from the past edging its way forward, a memory of how close they had once become. “What did you want to know?”
“Whether you might consider coming with me to see the specialist. It’s a lot to ask, especially after so long, but I’d love to have you there.”
Instinct told her to say yes, but sense held her back. “I don’t know, Tom. What would your family think? Your daughter didn’t look too pleased to see me here, and I doubt your wife will want me hanging around either.”
“My wife?” The wrinkles of his face deepened with confusion. “She passed away twenty years ago now, and we weren’t together for a long time before that.”
“Oh, I thought . . .” She held back, unsure what she really thought. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
His hand felt heavy on her shoulder, reassuring and grounding. “There’s a lot I suppose we don’t know about each other by now.” The idea that they had both been alone for years made her want to ask for details, like why he and his wife had separated and how she had died. But now wasn’t the time. “And Alice was just taken by surprise, that’s all. She’ll come round.”
“You told her about me, didn’t you?”
The smile that passed his lips was a curious mix of pleasure and sadness. “Of course I did.” It amazed Elizabeth that they could find something to smile about then. “How could I have kept you a secret? So,” he said, reaching for her hand. She didn’t pull away this time, and as his fingers slipped between hers, she felt her body relax. “Will you stay?”
“Well, it’s not like I can go back to Porthsennen tonight, is it. But I’ll need to find a hotel.”
“Why would you need a hotel? I’ve got plenty of spare rooms.”
“What would Alice say?”
“Leave Alice to me. I’ve spent years rattling around in this great big house. It’s been pretty lonely, Elizabeth,” he said as she felt his grip tighten, “but none of that matters now if you say you’ll stay.”
* * *
Not long after that, he showed her to one of the spare rooms. It was a pleasant space that overlooked his back garden, along with about twenty others. It made her feel as if she would be sleeping in a dormitory, all those people in such proximity. After he left her alone to unpack, she pulled the curtains shut, leaving the room in a subtle darkness. Soft light trickled from the lamp at the side of the bed as she lifted her suitcase and opened the lid. After taking out a couple of items, she couldn’t face doing the rest. Tears flowed but she kept it quiet, didn’t want to upset him. And then, nesting in among her clothes she saw the little basket that she had grabbed at the last minute, filled with every wish he had ever written. Why had she brought it with her? Perhaps because for years she had been existing in Tom’s wishes, always searching for the reality where their lives and dreams met. Right then she would have done anything to go back to the dream but knew that was no longer possible; the dream was over. This was their new reality now, and she was devastatingly awake.
Then
That evening Tom and Elizabeth sat in the old lookout with the small gas stove lit against the cold, the sound of birds singing the melody of a passing summer. Tom browsed her sketchbook with much greater care than he did the two canvases she had brought with her, which she had to admit was a disappointing response when she had chosen them so carefully. After a time, he placed the book down and turned to Elizabeth.
“I think you are quite good.” He pointed to the canvases stacked against the wall. “But I’m not so sure about those.”
It was unfortunate, but she gave herself a mental reminder of how much she hated it when her father gave her unburnished praise. “What’s wrong with my paintings?”
“Nothing,” he said, shrugging.
“Then why don’t you like them?”
Hope rose within her as he viewed them again, as if he was giving them a second chance, but was quickly dashed when he shook his head. “It’s just . . .” he said, closing his eyes to think. “They’re not very adventurous.”
Elizabeth was more than a bit put out. “Not adventurous? They took me hours to complete.”
“Maybe that’s the problem.”
How could that be? Everything needed time and effort, that’s what her father had taught her. Like getting ready for tonight, trying on nearly everything she owned before she settled on the pale-yellow dress. “You will have to explain what you mean, Thomas Hale.”
“It’s like when I left school. If I’d taken ages over the decision, the choice would have felt harder than it was, because I knew leaving wasn’t what I really wanted. But I had to leave; my brother was dead, my father was a mess, and I was the only one left who could do something to help.” The space created as he stood up felt like a void, and she missed his presence as he moved to pick up the smaller canvas, a painting of the local church. “When have you ever seen a wall that straight?” he asked, pointing to the bell tower. “It looks as if you used a ruler.” Admitting that indeed she had was not an option. “You’ve painted what you thought you saw, not what was there. The painting doesn’t tell the true story at all.” He set it aside and sat once again alongside her.
Her focus remained on the quilt, wondering who would sew in the next pieces, but eventually she looked up. “You’re right, I suppose.” Disappointment weighed on her shoulders, and she pulled the hand-stitched quilt up to her waist in defense. She had really wanted him to love her work.
“Don’t be like that,” he said, giving her a nudge. “You just have to learn to let go, be adventurous.”
“Adventurous?” she scoffed. What did he think she was doing now? “Do you know what would happen to me if people knew I was here with you?”
“I can’t imagine your father would be to
o pleased. Or your fiancé. But,” he said with a smile, “you came anyway.” Heat from his body pulsed against her as he pulled the quilt over his knees, his legs alongside hers. A shiver rippled down her spine as he reached out, stroked her cheek. Thoughts came to her that she had never experienced before today. It took her breath away to think what it would be like if he kissed her. “And I’m glad you did.”
Her lips were dry, so she wet them with her tongue, acutely aware that his hand was still on her face, close enough that she could feel his breath. “I’m glad too,” she told him, having already forgotten about her paintings’ failings.
* * *
Sleep was impossible that night for the thought of his touch. It had been so unexpected, so . . . wrong. Up until that point she had been telling herself that being with him in the lookout was a perfectly reasonable thing, even for somebody close to marriage. But when she considered telling the story of their meeting to James or her father, she found herself hiding the details, like the way they shared a quilt and the way his hand felt large against hers when he held it. Yes, they’d done that too, only letting go when they reached the bottom of the steps on the way back to the village, as if they had both somehow known they were stepping back into the real world, where the rules were different.
Tom made her feel something that day, something about herself that nobody else did. With him she started to believe in things that had once seemed impossible, as if she had choices and a blank sheet in front of her to be filled as she saw fit. As if life were an open ocean and Tom were a vessel upon which she could sail. He made her believe in an unwritten future. He made her believe in herself.
For weeks they met like that, every day, sometimes twice. They shared the heady weeks of summer, and as the days shortened, their time together seemed to take on an ever more precious nature. It was so exciting to meet, arranging their dates when nobody would find them, sneaking off together to places where they wouldn’t be seen. They never visited each other’s houses but walked the coastal trails, huddled together in the shelter, and once walked into Sennen village for ice cream. Often her thoughts ventured toward the lifeboat slipway, the rocks underneath where she knew boys and girls of her age sometimes went to be alone, but he had never suggested taking her down there, and she wouldn’t have dreamed of suggesting it herself.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked one time as they met to go for a picnic.
“Nothing,” she said, still thinking about when he might try to kiss her. That’s what being around him did to her, made her smile for nothing, because the truth was their time together was beginning to feel like everything.
“Looks like you’re smiling to me,” he said. His fingers clasped around hers in that familiar way, her smile intensifying as she leaned into his body. “Anyway, I like it,” he said, standing back to look at her. “Whatever it is, long may it last.”
Following the picnic that evening, they sat in the old lookout, drinking tea from a shared cup, and he asked her about painting, and she asked about his family. He never liked to talk all that much about them, content, it seemed, to listen to her instead. And what she came to realize in those stolen moments was that she could have spent a whole lifetime sitting in that lookout station telling him about herself, and still there wouldn’t have been time enough to tell him everything she wanted him to know.
* * *
The deep indigo of the night sky was fading as she arrived at the harbor, chased away by the pale blue light of morning. Wet gray streaks mottled the horizon, a watercolor of early September. They’d been meeting up for close to six weeks now. The cold ground chilled her body as she sat down on the edge of the seawall. Pulling out her sketchbook, she set about passing the time while she waited for Tom.
“You’re a glutton for punishment,” he said as he neared only fifteen minutes later. His hands were pink and chafed, felt rough and cold as he took hers in them. Watching as he gazed about to make sure nobody was looking, he leaned in and pressed his lips against her cheek. Her stomach knotted, excitement and danger and something else all muddled together. That feeling was like a drug, one of which she thought she could never tire. “It’s freezing out today.”
“It’s the coldest day yet.” She smiled, amazed by how cold his hands were from the sea. “What are we going to do when it’s the winter?”
“I’ll think of something,” he said.
“I brought something for you.” She pulled a rolled-up canvas out from under the fastenings of her satchel. “I hope you like it.”
“What is it?” he asked as he shuffled in next to her. He began to uncoil the roll, his fingers struggling at the string.
“A painting,” she said, and saw him smile. “Here, let me help.”
“What’s it of?”
“You’ll see in a minute.” Her heart was pounding with anticipation. “Don’t be so impatient.”
Warmth flooded her as he stole another kiss on her cheek, let his lips linger as he whispered in her ear, “It’s hard to be patient with you around.”
“Well, try,” she said, unable to stop giggling as she wriggled away, shivering from the cold, or something else she couldn’t describe.
“Oh, believe me, I’m trying.” A shudder passed through his body too, as if they’d shared the same physical manifestation of their emotions, and she didn’t dare let her imagination go where it wanted.
Once the roll was open, he held it out in front of him, turning so that the weak light from the lifeboat station shone in his direction. “It’s my house.” With wide eyes he glanced at the painting, then along the road toward his home. “I love it.” He motioned to the sketch pad. “Am I in there too?”
“Might be.” As he went to reach for it, she played with him, hiding the sketch pad behind her back. With one arm on either side of her he struggled for it, bringing their faces close, backing off only when they heard a car’s engine just a short distance away.
Once all was quiet, she handed it to him and watched as he flicked through the pages. A gull cawed at their side and she saw Tom’s hand slip into his pocket. He tossed a small chunk of dry bread onto the beach that the gull chased with enthusiasm. “Is this me?”
Struggling to stifle her laughter, she said, “Do you think you look that old? That’s Old Man Cressa.” The paper rustled as she turned the page. It required her to move in closer still, and she could feel the warmth of his face against her cheek. That sensation was something she had come to crave, wasn’t sure she could make it through a morning without anymore. “This is you,” she said quietly.
The sketch was of Tom standing tall with fishing nets at his feet, one hand up against his face to wipe a salty brow. It was the most detailed of all the pieces he had seen, something she had completed a week before while she had watched him working.
“It looks like me,” he said, pleased with himself and her. “But you have made me bigger than I really am. I think you wish I had more muscles.”
“Your muscles are just fine,” she said, blushing.
“Can I keep it?” There was a quality to his voice she had never heard before. At first, she wasn’t sure what it was, but then she began to realize it was humility. The urge to stand up and shout for anyone who could hear what she was feeling right then surged through her. Instead, she took the sketch pad and closed the cover.
“Maybe. But only if you can help me with something.”
“If I can, I will.”
Elizabeth looked out to sea, across the choppy waters to the nearby islands she had never seen up close. They were still in silhouette, but visible against the increasing light. “I have never been on a boat, not properly. I want to know what it feels like to be out there, on the water.” It heartened her to see him both smiling and nodding. “I want to go there.”
His gaze followed her arm toward Cape Cornwall. “To the Brisons?”
“I don’t know. Those two rocks,” she said, pointing again.
He nodded. “Yeah. They call them
the Brisons.”
“Will you take me?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, much to her disappointment. “I doubt you could even put a boat aside it to stand on the rock, and they rise a good fifty feet tall. Only things that can get on there are crabs, seals, and stranded ships.”
“Oh,” she said. The idea had stayed with her for days; she’d been eyeing those distant rocks and felt sure he’d take her. Only now she had plucked up the courage to raise the idea of a proper adventure with Tom and he didn’t want to go. “Couldn’t we just try?”
“You just said you’ve never even been in a boat.”
“Well, that’s not strictly true.” If it was her experience that was the problem, she could fix that. “I have been on the water. When I was a child, in a dinghy.”
It didn’t seem to help much. “We couldn’t go from here. We’d need a punt with a motor for that distance, and everybody would see us, say we were a pair of bleddy idiots. So, we’d have to get to Cape Cornwall first, take a boat from Priest Cove. It’s still a good mile from the coast, mind. That’s a fair distance in a rowing boat.”
“Could you row a mile?”
“Of course I could,” he said, his words trailing off into quiet contemplation. “But I’m not so sure I should.”
“Why not?”
“Come on, Elizabeth. If your father found out, what would he say? And Dr. Warbeck too. Don’t you wonder what they would say if they knew about us meeting like this?”
“Yes,” she said, wrapping her coat tight around her chest. “But this has got nothing to do with either of them.”
“I think it probably has.” He got to his feet, made for the road.
“Where are you going?” she called as she scrambled to follow him, aware that if anybody drove past, or if Mr. Boden from the shop came out to collect the milk, they’d be seen.
“I just don’t know what this is, that’s all. What would people say?”
“I thought you didn’t care about what people might say?”
“I don’t care what people say about me.” His face softened as he stepped toward her. His hands were cold as he touched her cheek, but she leaned into that touch because when it wasn’t there, she missed it. “But I care what they think about you.”
Little Wishes Page 6