by Tayte, Megan
‘Grannie, was Peter, my grandfather, blue like me?’
She peered at me for a moment, and I braced myself for a nonsensical answer – it was never possible to tell where her head was. But she replied quite clearly, ‘Oh yes, dear. He was blue too.’
I nodded. Even more reason to believe what Sienna had told me: that my grandfather had been a Cerulean.
‘But not as blue as that other chap, though,’ added Grannie. ‘Now he’s such a lovely shade! Like Cinderella’s dress.’
‘What other chap?’
‘You know,’ she said. ‘The young one. What’s his name? Oh, it escapes me.’ She frowned and stared off across the room, to where a lady was up and attempting a waltz.
I wondered who she could mean. Not Jude; he didn’t know her. Perhaps some other Cerulean had come to the home to heal? I was just opening my mouth to ask when she said:
‘Peter didn’t like him, of course. Not a jot. Perhaps that’s why the Cinderella boy left the village. Still, quite a kerfuffle he caused when he did.’
‘Kerfuffle?’
‘Taking her with him like that. For all that time she was gone, Peter was beside himself. But then she came back, didn’t she?’
‘Er, I’m not sure, Grannie. Who is she?’
Grannie took a long sip of tea and had a little chuckle at The Lion King.
‘Grannie?’ I pressed gently.
‘Yes, dear?’
‘Who left with the Cinderella boy?’
‘Cinderella’s a girl, poppet, not a boy.’
‘Yes, I know that, but…’
‘Do you know, I think it’s fish pie for tea tonight. I like fish pie.’
I gave up then and sat back to eat my fig roll. It was so incredibly chewy I bought myself a good couple of minutes to think. Another Cerulean coming to the cove, getting my grandfather’s back up and then disappearing for a while with some female whose absence upset Grandad. But there were only four females I knew of in my grandfather’s life: Nanna, Mum, Sienna and me. And certainly none of us had gone AWOL with a Cerulean. I looked over at Grannie. She was engrossed in two cartoon lions falling in love to ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’ and oblivious to the fact that she was dunking a foil-wrapped biscuit in her cup of tea. Bless her.
I stayed a little longer, until I could see Grannie’s eyelids were drooping, and then I said goodbye softly.
Her eyes flew open and her hand fumbled for mine.
‘You’ll come back soon?’ she said in the voice of a lost little girl.
‘Of course,’ I said, taking her hand and squeezing it.
‘And you’ll bring your Ryan with you?’
Ryan was Luke’s – deceased – father.
‘Well, I’ll try.’
‘You’re back to stay?’
‘Yes, Grannie.’
‘Good. Because he loves you, you know.’
Did she think I was Luke’s mum? ‘Er, Ryan loves me?’ I asked.
‘No, silly. Luke.’
‘Oh yes, Luke.’
I wondered what Luke had said on his visits with Grannie these past months. Perhaps she’d been his confidante – after all, she was easy to talk to, blissfully unaffected as she was by anything you said.
‘I love him too, Grannie.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Good. You know, dear, Sebastian the lobster is right. All you need is love.’
I had no idea who Sebastian the lobster was, but I had a fairly good idea it was in fact John Lennon who’d coined the term. Of course I said nothing – I just smiled and gave her a goodbye kiss on her soft, wrinkled cheek.
On the walk out to the car (after an ‘accidental’ collision with the receptionist, whose backache abruptly disappeared), I had Grannie’s last words on my mind. Back in the car, I searched through my iPod until I found, buried in the backlist, a live recording of The Beatles’ classic by Noel Gallagher. And as I weaved through the lanes back to Twycombe with the song blasting through the Mini’s speakers, I thought, was Lennon right? Could it be that easy – if you loved each other, that was all that mattered?
7: PROMISE
In the centre of Twycombe I parked beside the village square that overlooked the sea. Across the expanse of lawn the church of St Mary’s called to me – I could just slip across and take a moment for myself on the bench next to my grandparents’ graves. But hearty banging coming from the opposite direction acted as a homing signal, and I pulled a carrier bag from the back seat, locked the car and walked slowly down the road.
I passed the little parade of shops that formed the commercial centre of the village. The post office, the grocery store and the tourist shop were closed on this Sunday afternoon. Pausing outside the tiny cafe, I peeked through the window. The inside was empty and the floor by the door was carpeted with junk mail. I nodded, satisfied, and walked on.
My destination might be described by the realist as little more than a wooden shack on the beachfront. But to the romantic and the visionary, this rundown, ramshackle former fishmonger’s was a blank canvas, alive with opportunity.
This was The Project. This was Luke’s dream.
Cara had told me the story over a large mocktail one day. Before I died, I’d signed over to Luke and Cara a sizeable sum of money (the fortune my father had dumped in my account as a farewell gesture after Dear Johning me), and with Cara’s coaxing Luke had decided to invest some in setting up his very own cafe.
The problem was location. Twycombe was not an option; it was a small community already served by a popular cafe, so the competition would be too fierce. The city of Plymouth seemed the obvious answer, but nothing could entice Luke to work over there. He was a seaside guy, as he put it, not a city guy.
Then one February morning Cara had popped down to the cove for her beloved mochaccino and found the cafe shut up and a sign on the door announcing the closure of the business. After getting over her caffeine-withdrawal horror, she hot-tailed it back to the house and informed Luke she’d found the perfect location for his foodie business: sea views, walking distance from the house, serving a clientele he knew and loved, with no competition from any cafe business. But the premises were too small, Luke decided, and he had bigger ambitions. That’s when his eyes were drawn down the road to this large, derelict shack.
By that point Luke had been working hard to fix up the cottage with the help of contractors, and though Cara told him he was insane to take on the shabby old eyesore on the seafront, he was quite confident that he could bring the building up to standard. Two months later he’d signed the deeds that made him the owner, and for the past few weeks he’d been here every day, clearing the structure ready for the contractors to start work. It was coming along beautifully, he told me when we met each evening after a long day’s work on his part, though whenever I came by it still looked more home-for-vermin than cafe to me.
The front doors, like the windows, were boarded up, so I made my way around to the back, picking my way carefully through stacks of wood and bricks, and squeezing through the narrow gap between a wall and a skip full to bursting with rubble. The banging had stopped, but I could feel someone nearby, that nagging tug on my energy.
‘Luke?’ I called as I neared the one functional entrance to the building.
‘Scarlett?’ came his voice, muffled.
‘Can I come in?’
‘Yes! Just watch your footing. I pulled up some floorboards…’
Gingerly, I pushed open the old wooden door and made my way inside. I focused on balancing on joists until I reached a solid floor and then looked up. My eyes widened.
Luke, standing a few feet from me all hot and dishevelled, waved his screwdriver about in a sweeping gesture. ‘What d’you think?’
‘Wow!’ I said. ‘What a difference!’
Last time I’d been to the beach hut, as Luke lovingly called it, it had been a dark and dingy space subdivided into poky rooms. Now, Luke’s busy hammer had wreaked havoc, and the result was a huge, echoing space that I could s
ee would be flooded with light once the boarding was removed from the windows.
I took a deep breath. ‘No fishy smell!’ I declared in wonder.
He grinned. ‘No fishy smell – it was the old counter that reeked of it, and that’s buried in the skip now.’
‘This is going to be amazing, Luke! I’m so proud of you.’
I felt choked up with emotion, and I lurched forwards and wrapped my arms around him tightly, not caring about the sweat on him or the dirt or… yeesh! Was that a spider on his shoulder?
‘It’s because of you, Scarlett,’ he said, hugging me back hard with the hand that wasn’t wielding a screwdriver.
I brushed away the crawly beast and then closed my eyes and gave in to the moment. But it was too fleeting.
‘Anyway, what are you doing here?’ said Luke, stepping back, right back. ‘It’s too early yet, isn’t it? You should be at home, resting.’
I sighed. ‘I don’t need to rest, Luke.’
‘Yes, you do. You have to take it seriously, Scarlett, the exhaustion. That day when I couldn’t wake you…’
Etched onto his face was all the horror he’d felt. I ached for him. If only it could be simpler for us.
‘Luke,’ I said, ‘I know my limits, and I’m a very, very long way from them. You have to trust me.’
‘I do trust you!’ he protested.
There were many answers I could give to that, and I knew what treacherous territory they would lead to. Best to get some fresh air and a shot of sugar into our systems first.
‘I picked up a picnic for us,’ I said, pointing to the carrier bag on the doorstep. ‘Take a break and sit outside for a bit with me?’
‘Sure,’ he said at once.
I picked my way back across the joists carefully – there were evil-looking rusty nails sticking out everywhere that had ‘tetanus’ written all over them. As I retrieved the carrier bag I looked back to see Luke striding from joist to joist with ease. I shook my head; I really needed to toughen up.
Outside, Luke took my hand and helped me over a mound of rotten wood and onto the beach, where we sat down. I rummaged in the carrier bag and produced two bottles of lemonade, two pre-packaged bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches and a packet of Jaffa Cakes.
Luke smiled at the offering. ‘Back to the usual Scarlett cuisine, I see.’
‘Not funny,’ I told him sternly.
He opened his bottle of lemonade, which had apparently been shaken up on the journey over, and got doused in a sticky, sugary shower.
‘Now that,’ I said, ‘is funny!’
He growled at me, grabbed a fistful of my t-shirt and hauled me in for a long kiss. His lips tasted salty, like sea spray.
‘Ah well,’ said Luke when he pulled back. ‘Good job it’s warm today.’ And casual as you like, he pulled off his soggy t-shirt, dumped it on the sand beside him and reached for a sandwich.
I tried not to ogle his chest. All those months working at the cottage and then here – well, let’s just say he was looking good. I told myself to focus. We needed to talk right now, not…
‘Scarlett?’
The edge in Luke’s voice snapped me round. I traced his gaze – he was looking at the carrier bag on which was emblazoned ‘Jimbo’s Quick Grabs’.
‘You bought this food from the convenience store by Grannie’s home?’
‘Yes. I’ve been to see her.’
His eyes widened and the sandwich in his hand trembled so that a slice of tomato slipped out and fell to the sand.
‘Cara mentioned that she’d been asking for me,’ I explained.
‘But all those people! Scarlett!’ Colour was flooding Luke’s cheeks and I was starting to worry for the fate of the bacon and lettuce between the slices of bread he was waving about. ‘You’re not meant to go near people – sick people – loads of people – any people!’
‘Luke,’ I began, ‘it’s fine…’
‘IT’S NOT FINE!’ he roared.
Shocked, I jerked back. He saw the hurt in my eyes, and his shoulders slumped.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shouted. I just… Scarlett, you have to be sensible! You have to take care of yourself.’
‘I am, Luke. I do.’
‘No. No, you don’t. You’re terrible at it. All those months you lived here before, and you were so horribly ill, and you kept pushing through it – you weren’t careful, you were reckless. And now, you have this... this... thing, and it can take you from me again.’
‘Luke…’ I put a hand on his chest. Beneath the hot skin I could feel his heart fluttering like a caged bird. ‘First of all, it’s not a thing, it’s a gift. Second of all, I’m not going anywhere again. I chose you. I chose Twycombe. I’m staying here.’
‘But Jude told me, when he came that day you wouldn’t wake up, he told me this thing in you can kill you! Go too far and you’re dead!’
Thanks for that, Jude, I thought. So not a detail that needed to be shared with Luke.
‘I’m not going to die, Luke,’ I tried to interject, but he was talking again:
‘Bad things happen to you, Scarlett. Things fall on you. You fall off things. The fire –’
‘That was then, Luke. It’s different now. I’ve already died; death doesn’t want me now.’
‘I don’t know what that means, Scarlett. I just know that I worry. I worry all the time.’ He hung his head and picked at his sandwich.
He looked so miserable; I hated to see him that way. It saddened me. And it angered me a little.
‘Give me that,’ I said, and I took the remains of the sandwich from him. Then I shifted so that I was kneeling in front of him, so I could look him right in the eye, and I took a deep breath and said what needed to be said:
‘I get it. That you love me. That you want to protect me. I get that you got really, really hurt, and you’re frightened it could happen again. I could make a million promises to you now that everything will be okay, that we’re in our happy ending now and nothing will ever hurt us again. But that won’t make it all better. You lost your parents, and I lost my sister, and we both know stuff happens, stuff that hurts, stuff you can’t control. But you can’t live your life in fear, Luke. At some point you have to believe me when I say I love you and I’m yours and I’m staying here. With you.’
‘Scarlett…’ His voice was rough with emotion, and he pulled me onto his lap and buried his face in my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight. I’m so happy you’re back. I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ I said, stroking my palm up and down his back.
He took a shuddering breath and let it out slowly. And then took in a very sharp breath and shoved me, hard, to one side so that I fell, sprawling, onto the sand. I lay there, stunned, for a second, and then he was hauling me back up, ejecting apologetic words:
‘Seagull! Diving! Sandwich!’
I looked up to see the bird beating its wings vigorously, a limp lettuce leaf hanging from its beak.
‘Are you okay?’ demanded Luke.
He was gripping my arms tightly and his face was lined with tension. Before I could point out the obvious, he beat me to it.
‘Man,’ he said, letting me go. ‘What is wrong with me? It’s just a seagull.’
‘Yep. Just a seagull. I’m fine. We’re fine. No seagull’s going to come between us.’
He smiled, and then sighed.
‘Logically, I know it’s nuts,’ he said. ‘This Jude thing. This fear of what you are now, what you can do. My head tells me constantly to chill out, be rational. But my heart… I’m not Cara. I don’t just take all this’ – he waved his hands about vaguely – ‘magic stuff in my stride.’
‘Nor do I!’ I assured him. ‘But I don’t have any choice because it’s who I am now. I never did have a choice in all this, remember – not really. It was Cerulean or dead. Staying a regular human girl wasn’t on offer.’
‘I know. I know that.’
I took a deep breath before continuing. W
e were just starting to get somewhere, I thought – he was settling down, seeing sense. I was loath to say anything that may send us back to square one. But we’d come this far...
‘Now that I am a Cerulean, Luke, I kind of have to get on with it. Make a life here, with you, that works for who I am now.’
He stared at me, unblinking, and I thought, This is it. This is where it all unravels, and I felt the familiar prick of tears. But then he grabbed my hands and squeezed them tight and said:
‘I get it. I do, Scarlett. You can’t spend the rest of your life just hanging about alone all day and then seeing me each evening. You deserve much more than that. Cara has her fashion business. I have this place. You need your own thing.’
‘And you know what that thing is, right?’
His eyes flicked down to my hands, and he nodded. Then he looked up and said:
‘But do you know how? I mean, I know you took away the scar on my nose, and helped Cara’s legs, and you told us Jude explained some of it to you in Newquay…’
‘I don’t know enough,’ I admitted. ‘I’m frightened to go out there alone and just make it up as I go along. I don’t want to do the wrong thing. Heal the wrong person. Go too far.’
‘You’ll need guidance then.’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Michael, perhaps? He seemed like a decent bloke.’
‘He is. But he’s got his teaching at the school, plus his own healing work, plus the artworks for the beach hut.’
‘Right,’ said Luke. Then he straightened his back and added, ‘Ask Jude, then. I bet he’d help you.’
‘Er, well, yes,’ I spluttered. Holy cow – he was suggesting the training I’d nervously come here to announce to him?
‘Scarlett,’ said Luke, a little exasperated, ‘isn’t this what you want? Me to trust you? Support you?’
‘Yes! I just thought, you know, you and Jude…’
‘Look, if he’d have come last night – where was he, anyway?’
‘Train derailment.’
Luke’s jaw dropped. ‘The Plymouth train? They were saying on the radio earlier that it was a miracle only seven people died. So many walked away.’