It was too dark to walk then, but the next day we came back, at Edwin’s insistence, before hitting the road. The forecast was changeable, but for now the morning light was lovely, with that poignancy that comes with a low winter sun. We moved our car to the cliff top lay-by and went for a walk on the beach. We had the bay to ourselves. The tide was on the turn, still far out but gently licking its way in. The sand faded from shiny copper where it was speckled with fine shingle, to pewter, to a creamy gold near the top, where the path met the beach.
We walked side by side, eastward, my gloved hand tucked into his arm, for a while anyway – we didn’t feel the need for that. And to begin with we didn’t talk, either. I believe we were both thinking of Nico and Zinny up there in the house, doing whatever they were doing. I imagined Nico helping Zinny to walk, the two of them bowed and slow, solicitous of one another, and found I was crying, openly, uncaringly, my sobs small in the wide sea air, my tears drying as they flowed.
We had reached the end of the beach and Edwin put his arm across my shoulders.
‘I know … I know … Here.’ He steered me to a rock where we could both sit down. ‘What we need is the sun on our faces.’
The tall rocks at the far, western end looked like a castle with the sunlight on its towers. Gulls glinted white in the dark shade below them. The house was somewhere up there to our right, but invisible now beyond the edge of the cliff, the hill behind it billowing up like a soft green sail. The small waves crept silkily towards us, spreading then trailing a delicate edging of watery lace on the hard sand. The first of the clouds trailed shadows over us. Edwin cupped my chin and turned my face to his, wiping my tears with his other hand, and kissing me.
‘I love you,’ he said. ‘Was that a “Yes” in there? Yesterday?’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘Thank God for that. I risked looking three kinds of idiot otherwise.’
‘They liked you so much.’
‘And I liked them.’ He kissed me again, this time on the forehead, and turned his own face back to the sun. ‘Actually, I more than liked them. They’re truly wonderful, Flora.’
I looked at him in surprise, but he was gazing not so much at the view now as into his mind’s eye.
‘It’s not given to many to have parents who are truly still in love, the way they are – I mean the romance still undimmed like that. Or to know, as you do, that you were chosen. That you were so important to Nico that he risked losing the love of his life for you – no, listen – and that she risked freedom and happiness so that you could be together …’ Still thinking, he brushed his hand on mine. ‘They are beautiful, and I don’t mean just handsome, which they are undoubtedly are. They’re beautiful, and graceful – and heroic.’
We sat together for another minute or two, and then he rose, and held out his hand, taking me with him back over the sand as a chilly wind chivvied us on our way.
‘Like you,’ he said.
TWENTY-TWO
2000
The next time we were there, in that very place, was late spring, that breathlessly lovely time when the English countryside has a bridal air, the trees with blossom in their hair, the air sweetly green-smelling, the grass studded with daisies and the cliff ledges with thrift, the little waves frisky in the bay.
We parked in the same place as before. There was one other car there, a well-used Japanese hatchback with two child seats in the back. Down on the beach, at the tip of the western rocks, we could see two figures – a child running in wide, excited circles and a woman with what looked like a rucksack on her back, which we then realized was a papoose.
Edwin insisted on going ahead of me and I followed him carefully down the rickety steps, holding my posy, and the paper bag of seeds. At the bottom he stood aside, touching my back gently with his hand as I did so. He didn’t follow, and when I glanced over my shoulder I saw him starting to walk slowly across the sand towards the water’s edge. The man I loved had abandoned his shoes and was barefoot, an instinct common to all ages.
I too walked slowly, held by the spell of the perfect day. I’d imagined this – both this visit and what had happened – so often, that it held no horrors for me. When I reached the flat rock where Edwin and I had sat before I paused, to look around and orient myself.
From the cliff top lay-by I ran my eye along to the point where I knew the narrow downhill road turned away from the sea to run past our house. That was the place, that bend – even with spring growth you could still make out the red earth graze on the lip of the cliff, and the hurtling path they’d taken after that. I clutched the flowers and seeds in one hand and set off over the rocks, taking long, careful strides, my free arm held out wide to steady myself. I was ungainly by now but I moved surprisingly surely, buoyed up by my purpose.
The exact place wasn’t hard to find. The ground was scarred and the gorse bushes broken and flattened. The authorities had done a good job tidying up though: there was no debris – or almost none. I felt something under my sandal, and when I picked it up I found it was a tiny shard of blackened metal no bigger than my thumbnail, the broken edge razor sharp. Hopefully, full of excitement, I rubbed the smooth side with the hem of my dress, and in no time the silver shone through.
This, then, was where they had ended their story, Nico and Zinny. Where they had flown in the Lotus, their gleaming chariot. No accident, whatever the coroner might say, but their last escape, together as always.
The first stumble of rocks was behind me, but here there was hard turf beneath my feet, laid bare by the car’s impact. I kneeled down and, using the tiny piece of metal, scraped and gouged until I was sweating, and had succeeded in roughening the surface so I could see loose earth. I opened the paper bag and sprinkled the seeds, trickling water over them from my drinking bottle. Then I laid the bunch of pink and blue flowers (love-in-a-mist, the man in Salting had assured me) on the ground alongside my makeshift border. Finally, I said my farewells.
Getting to my feet was awkward – I hadn’t allowed for it. I had to go on hands and knees to the nearest rock and haul myself up by easy stages.
The woman in the distance was sitting down now, her baby next to her, the little boy paddling crazily, feet stamping, water flying. Edwin had been watching me, and began unhurriedly walking towards me over the sand.
As we drew closer, I felt our baby push at my walls, eager for life.
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