by Julie Cohen
But can he forget? Can I?
On the other hand, if I do meet him, will I be doing the right thing? Should I be jumping into another relationship, and such an intense one, so quickly, when I don’t know what to feel? When I’m not certain that I even can feel any more?
On Friday night, I walk around and around the living room. Lauren is curled up on the sofa tapping into her phone. She should be out having fun, but she’s brought us a film to watch later. It’s dark outside; autumn is shortening the days.
‘Stop prowling,’ she says to me. ‘You’re making me dizzy.’
I perch on the other sofa, then get up again. I want something to do, something mindless like tidying or ironing, but the flat is spotless and Lauren sends all her laundry out, and I can’t stop moving around and around, like the thoughts in my head. I brush against a side table and an envelope slides off the pile stacked there, of all the post I’ve received and haven’t bothered to open yet.
That’s something I can do. I bring the stack over to the sofa and begin to open envelopes. It’s mostly get well cards, from my editor Madelyne (Don’t worry about work, sweetie, just get better!) and my agent, and friends who don’t live in London. A box of expensive chocolates from Andrew and Tom. I open it and offer some to Lauren.
‘How do all these people even know that I’ve been ill? And that I’m staying here?’
‘Word travels. Lots of people love you.’
‘I threw away all the cards people sent me after my mother died,’ I tell her. ‘I didn’t even read them. I sort of think that was a mistake.’
Right at the bottom of the pile is a yellow envelope. The card is of a fuzzy yellow duckling wearing a hat. It’s holding on to a rope, the other end of which has been tied around a quaint wishing well. GET WELL it says. As in, the duck has got a well. I open it, expecting an ironic message from one of my friends.
Dear Felicity,
I told you once that you should consider me your mother. I would be a poor mother if I took away my love because of something you had done. I’m sorry for my behaviour the last time we met. I hope you are feeling much better.
Love, Molly and Derek
I read the card and reread it, and then look at the front again. It’s still a duck with a wishing well. I don’t know how I could have possibly thought it was from anyone but Molly Wickham.
All at once I miss Molly: her lily-of-the-valley-scented hugs, her flowered teacups, the proud look she gets on her face every time all of her family are gathered together. I remember how magnificent I’d thought her in the garden, defending her son. How much strength there is in niceness, in softness, in love.
‘I need to go somewhere,’ I say.
‘Okay,’ replies Lauren. ‘I keep on saying you should get out of this flat. Where do you want to go? To the pub for a swift one?’
‘No. I need to go to St Ives.’ I walk into my bedroom to look for my shoes. Lauren follows me.
‘St Ives? Cornwall? Right now?’
‘Yes.’ I pull on my trainers, and find a cardigan.
Lauren is smiling. ‘Now this is the Felicity I know. Finally. How are you planning to get there?’
‘I don’t know. The train?’
She checks something rapidly on her phone. ‘Darling, this time of night, you wouldn’t even get there until tomorrow. It’ll have to be by car. And you’re not allowed to drive, so I’ll have to come with you.’
‘You haven’t got a car.’
Her smile gets broader. ‘I’ve got an idea. Just a minute.’
While she disappears to have a conversation on her phone, I pack a few clothes into a rucksack: warm things, a waterproof. The bundle, wrapped in a plastic bag, has been in the drawer with my socks since I came to Lauren’s flat. It fits easily into the rucksack. Although I’ve assumed that Lauren is ringing a car rental agency, when I join her in the living room, she’s giggling. ‘See you in five,’ she says into her phone, and slips it into her pocket. ‘Right. You pack the chocolates whilst I make a flask of coffee.’
‘You own a flask?’
‘Full of surprises, me,’ she says, tapping her nose.
Fifteen minutes later, her phone chirps and we’re running down the stairs and out of the lobby, Lauren pulling on her cashmere jacket. ‘Remember getting kicked out of that hostel in Bangkok?’ she asks me, but I’ve stopped dead at the sight of the vehicle which is idling in front of the building. It’s a green van with the words TWO SLICES CATERING on the side.
‘Who’s this?’ I ask. The driver’s door opens and a man gets out.
‘This is Bill,’ says Lauren. She’s actually blushing. Bill, tall and with curly hair in need of cutting, offers me his hand to shake.
‘I’ve seen you before,’ I tell him. ‘Thanks for this.’
‘Hey, thank you. I didn’t have any plans, and I love the beach.’
Lauren gets into the passenger seat, breathless, and I curl up in the back next to several empty plastic mayonnaise containers. As Bill drives us through London, I send her a text from the back seat to the front: Is this one independently wealthy, too?
She turns around. ‘After careful consideration, and after watching you nearly die, I’ve decided with all due respect that the checklist can go to hell.’
‘Here’s to that,’ agrees Bill, turning onto the A4.
I leave my shoes at the top of Porthmeor Beach and roll up my trousers. Lauren and Bill lag behind me, maybe because they know I want to be alone, maybe because they want to be alone too. I walk down the sand to the edge of the sea, listening to its large dark sound.
My mother isn’t here. I know that she doesn’t live anywhere but inside my memories. Still, I breathe in deeply, trying to catch the scent of her, trying to find a sign.
There’s nothing. Nothing but the hiss of water on sand, the foaming surf. No stars tonight, no moon, only the smell of seaweed and salt. And there was never any sign anyway; that was just a bubble in my brain.
I unwrap the urn from the plastic bag and I unscrew the top. ‘Goodbye, Mum,’ I say, and I tip the contents out into the sea. So she can join the water cycle, swim in the ocean, fall with the rain. I imagine particles of her body dancing in the surf under the shimmer of the moon.
All she wanted was for me to be ready to say goodbye to her.
I let the water roll over my feet and ankles, here at the edge of land, where the country stops, and I know, finally, what it means to walk lightly. It’s not giving things away. It’s not the opposite of holding on.
It means to forgive and be forgiven. It means to hold on to love, and to nothing else.
It’s taken five hours to drive here, and maybe all of my life of wandering beforehand. But fifteen minutes on the beach is all it takes for me to know exactly what I need to do next. For me to know what love is.
Whether it will work out, I have no idea.
Ewan
THE RAIN SENT the tourists running for shelter, but Ewan pulled his leather jacket up over his head and kept looking. It was quarter to twelve, and he’d been here for half an hour already, standing outside the gates to the courtyard where he could see her if she came up the hill.
For the past few days, he’d been nervous as a cat. He’d taken a Gibson out of storage and started playing again, which felt good, but he couldn’t settle to it. He was too aware of the days passing, the date he’d chosen pretty much at random approaching. With every day he got more restless.
He was ready for a change. Definitely ready. But it felt like ages ago since he’d sent that message, asking Felicity to meet him here again. So much had happened since: his trip to Leicester, meeting with Ginge again, the first couple of sessions with Ali, his new counsellor. It was getting to be that he didn’t have the impulse to ring Flick every time he saw something he thought she’d like.
But that would change.
He rocked back and forward on his feet, looking around, seeing her everywhere. People wore anoraks and hats, huddled under umbrellas, coming o
ut of the Royal Observatory Museum to stand astride the Meridian Line. It was supposedly where the world ended. Or began.
He wanted to begin again, to wash himself clean with love.
A black golf umbrella approached him, only a pair of jeans and wellies visible below. The wellies had orange spots on them. ‘Flick?’ he said, ducking his head to look underneath.
It wasn’t Flick. But she was so familiar that it took a moment before he could process who she was.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d be here,’ said Alana.
He could only stare. ‘What?’
‘It’s a long way to come. So I’m glad you bothered to turn up, though you could have picked a place with a roof. Where is she?’
‘Who?’
‘Felicity.’
Though he couldn’t process this, he glanced around, trying to spot Felicity. Greenwich park was nearly empty. All he saw was a busker, under a tree down the hill. A single person hidden under a pink umbrella watched him play guitar.
‘I … don’t know where Felicity is,’ he said. ‘She’s supposed to be here.’
Alana shrugged. ‘Okay. It doesn’t matter.’ Her eyes slipped past him to the busker, and then back. ‘I need to know that you really want to do this. It’s been hard enough already, without you mucking her about.’
‘Mucking who about?’
Alana glared at him. ‘You need to ask?’ She looked down the hill again at the busker, who was playing that Katrina and the Waves song, and the small figure watching him play, under a pink umbrella, with pink wellies, who turned so the side of her face was visible, and her red hair.
Ewan’s heart beat painfully once, and then harder.
‘Two years without a word, and suddenly this. It’s fine, she wanted to come, but you can’t leave it for so long this time, Ewan. You need to be in her life, or out of it. And we can’t come traipsing down here every time you wave your hand. You have to make the effort. You, yourself.’
He couldn’t take his eyes off his daughter as she watched the busker. She was skinny, in a raincoat that was too short for her in the arms. Her feet danced in the forming mud.
‘How … how do you know Felicity?’ he asked.
‘She was the one I spoke to? The one who sent the train tickets and told us what time to meet you? What is she, your girlfriend, or your personal secretary?’
‘Felicity is …’
A life saver. A life changer. The person who was not coming, who was never going to come, but had known how to give him his second chance. The second chance he really needed, who was nodding her head to the music right now in the rain.
‘Does Rebecca want to see me?’ he asked.
‘I said she did, didn’t I? I’ve left the other two with Mike. It was lucky I could get the time off work at such short notice. But she was excited, and it’s important.’ Alana pointed at Rebecca. ‘She’s the queen of lost causes, that one. She’s got a heart as soft as soft. She begged to watch that man playing guitar. Because no one else would watch him in the rain, and she felt bad, she said.’ Alana turned and seized his sleeve. ‘Listen, Ewan, I mean it. Only if you’re going to be there for her from now on. She’s growing up quickly, and you can’t break her heart any more. You’re in, or out.’
The song finished, and his daughter clapped, holding her umbrella under her chin. She half-turned then, and he saw how she was searching the park, looking up the hill.
‘I’m in,’ he said, barely able to hear himself over the drumming of the rain and his own heart. ‘I am in.’
And then she spotted him, his daughter, and he was running down the hill, jacket falling from his head, forgotten, rain in his face and in hers as Rebecca ran up the hill to meet him halfway.
Chapter Thirty-six
IT’S NOON ON 12 September, and as soon as I reach Hope Cottage I can tell that it’s empty. Someone has tidied the front garden; the grass has been mowed and the hedges have been pruned. I recognize the hand of my mother-in-law, though the weeds are already starting to grow back. Quinn’s car is gone.
I pause at the front gate. I knew he wouldn’t be here; that he’d be at work. Quinn’s habits are entirely predictable. I’ve told myself this was the reason I didn’t ring first. I was planning to let myself in to wait for him, to be here when he got home. I wanted to be early, for once, and waiting for him. But the cottage looks deserted, as if the soul has gone out of it. Maybe it’s because the garden has been trimmed. Or maybe it’s something more.
The real reason I didn’t ring first was because I was afraid he wouldn’t answer. Or that he would answer, but he would tell me not to come.
The rain that’s been threatening all morning has started to fall, a few drops at a time. I follow the path round towards the back door, but stop when I reach the side of the cottage. Quinn’s bike is leaning against it. There’s a large, heavy D-lock on its wheel.
I can hardly believe it until I touch it. It’s new. It looks impenetrable. A raindrop hits it and beads off. Probably in the city, a bike thief could be through it in ten seconds flat but out here, it’s a gleaming black deterrent to a child’s joy-rides.
‘Oh Quinn,’ I whisper. ‘What have I done to you?’
Gravel crunches and I look up to see Quinn’s car pulling into the drive. He’s a shadow behind the windscreen; he probably can’t see me yet, as the shed obscures half the drive and I’m behind it. The motor shuts off and I hear his door opening, his footsteps on the gravel, the boot open and close. He’ll come round the shed towards the house in a minute. I listen for his footsteps, distinct from the patter of the rain.
He rounds the corner. He’s wearing jeans and a blue jumper. He has a backpack slung over his shoulder and he carries a suitcase. Sunglasses have been pushed up onto the top of his head. He’s let his beard grow out and he’s tanned, always taller than I remember, with rain in his hair.
This is the feeling. Simple joy. A drink of water after the desert.
‘Hello, love,’ I say.
I know what Quinn meant every time he said it. Every single time. Because I mean it too.
He’s staring at me as if he can’t believe that I’m here. It’s not joy on his face; it’s surprise, and caution – and I’ve done that to him too.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I tell him.
‘I …’ He shakes his head to clear it and the sunglasses fall off; he catches them in one hand without looking away from me. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I’m feeling fine. I’m feeling exactly the way I want to feel. A little nervous about seeing you, though.’ I point to his suitcase. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Oh – Croatia.’
‘Croatia?’
‘I needed to get away. It was the first package deal that came up on the first website I visited. I took two weeks off work and went.’
‘Was it nice?’
‘I don’t know.’ He hangs his sunglasses from his collar, something I’ve never seen him do before, and rubs his face. It’s raining harder now, the drops fatter and more frequent, but neither one of us is very concerned about getting inside. ‘I thought today was the day you were meant to meet him.’
‘I decided to meet you instead. If that’s all right.’
He hasn’t moved forward since he spotted me, and I haven’t moved either. My hair has flattened to my skull, and it’s beginning to drip down my neck. His eyes are the shade of the cloudy sky, the shade of the rain.
‘I’ll go if you want me to,’ I say. ‘I know I’ve hurt you. But I miss you so much, Quinn. I love you. I came to see if you can forgive me.’
Quinn drops the backpack, leaves his suitcase on the wet ground, and steps forward at last. He reaches past me and unlocks the D-lock with a single twist of a key. Then he throws it, in two pieces, into the bushes. There’s a clunk as each piece hits the ground separately.
‘Horrible thing,’ he says, and then he takes half a turn towards me and I’m in his arms. I hold tight to his waist and I press my face hard against his
chest where I can hear his heart, his strong, tender heart.
And this is what love is. This is what we’re starting again. All the things we’ve done together and will do, all the extraordinary ordinary things. It’s the scent of a favourite jumper, wool and cedar. It’s the sound of someone in the kitchen making a cup of tea at the beginning of the day, the squeak of the gate at the end. It’s arguments and partings, misunderstandings on the telephone, washing the laundry wrong so that things shrink. It’s the scrawled double X on the bottom of a shopping list, the moment when you both see the sun rise and your hands meet and curl around each other, the exchanged glances at Sunday dinner that promise a conversation later in bed. It’s the times his mother drives you crazy and he’s remembered your best friend’s birthday when you’ve forgotten and that’s more annoying than helpful. It’s wet shoes lined up together in front of the fire and a sleepy hand stroking your hair when you wake up sad. It’s the silences, always broken in the end with the right words or the wrong ones, or the wrong ones that are the right ones really. It’s built from nothing in layers, with sloppily-patched holes, weeds untrimmed, no corner of it perfect, all of it beautiful.
He holds me and whispers into my hair.
‘Hello, love,’ he says.
Author’s Note
In 2010, my friend Ken told us that he had to have brain surgery. He’d been having these funny turns, episodes that felt like anxiety attacks, snatches of half-heard music or dialogue from television shows. When he consulted a doctor he discovered that he had a massive cerebral aneurysm, which had been in his brain probably for many years, and which looked unnervingly like a squid. Although he joked about it, he knew, and everyone who loved him knew, that this odd-looking thing in his brain had the potential to rob him of everything that he was.
I’ve always been fascinated by the power of the human brain. I read Oliver Sacks books like they’re candy, and one day in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat I came across an account of temporal lobe seizures in an elderly woman, which manifested as her hearing music – but not just any music. She heard Irish songs from her childhood, which reminded her strongly of her mother, and where she had been, what she had felt, when she had last heard the songs in real life. The songs were distracting, and at times, very loud … but they were comforting too. Such epileptic hallucinations, Sacks explained, were real memories, accompanied by the same emotions the woman had felt during the original experiences.