‘What will I tell people at school?’
I shrug. ‘That you wanted to check out the bright lights of Reading?’ I ruffle his hair and he bats my hand away. ‘People will move on. As Mum used to say, it’s yesterday’s chip wrap.’
He groans. ‘Oh God, they’ll send me to Miss Yardley.’
‘Who?’
‘The student brain-doctor. She’s there to make sure kids don’t top themselves between Maths and Biology.’ Alex strokes the dog’s head and she blinks up at him, nosing his hand for more.
Nathan comes into the kitchen and drinks the cup of coffee I hand him. ‘Come on then,’ he says to Alex. ‘Oh, and the police want to talk to you later so I’ll pick you up at the end of school. I’ve had to cancel an important meeting, which is tedious to say the least.’
Alex swings his school bag on to his shoulder and then they are gone. I watch them through the window, Nathan marching, Alex dragging his feet in sullen silence. I close my eyes and listen to the sound of the car retreating.
It’s quarter to eight. I need to leave now. From nowhere, I’m hit by the image of Cam hunched over the body on the boat, shaking, raking his fingers so aggressively against the wooden deck he rubs them raw. I grab the worktop to steady myself and take a few deep breaths. My nerves are ragged. I think back to last night. The torment in his eyes and the past bearing down on him like lead. I’ve held on to a fantasy version of Cam Stewart – a man I’ve pictured as tall and broad, young and virile, with an easy, generous laugh – for so long. The haunted version I saw yesterday has shaken me. The need to apologise to him, to make things better, is overwhelming.
Even as I think these things, I realise how pathetic I am, how delusional.
How on earth can I make it better?
The bus drops me a few minutes’ walk from the hostel in Penzance. I have no idea if he’ll be there or if he’s already left. Or if he was ever even here. Maybe he told me the wrong place by mistake? Or on purpose? Perhaps he’s in a B&B somewhere else entirely. Or maybe he actually drove back to Reading last night? My anxiety is at an unbearable level, nerves ragged, and stomach churning; I have no idea what I’ll say to him.
The hostel is an old Victorian townhouse, its walls now painted a garish yellow, large sash windows and various notices – some years out of date – pinned to a board by the front door which is painted the colour of wine bottles. As I walk up the steps I hit a wall of doubt. I recall the way he looked through me, how flat and cool his voice was as he told me we had nothing to say to each other. What if he doesn’t want to see me? What will I do if he shouts, runs at me, tells me to get the hell out of his life? Is he hidden, watching me from an upstairs window, pretending not to be here? Instinctively, I glance upwards, expecting the telltale fall of a curtain, but everything is still.
The door is stiff when I push it open. Inside, the grandeur and colour of the facade is replaced by bland cream and the strong smell of damp and plug-in air freshener. The reception desk is crowded with leaflets, postcards for sale, and various charity boxes. The man at the desk puts down his mug when he hears me and looks up from his newspaper. Middle-aged, with red-rimmed glasses and a green thick-knit cardigan, he looks behind me, perhaps for luggage, then scrutinises me suspiciously. I shift uncomfortably.
‘Can I help you?’
His brusqueness throws me. ‘I’m… I’m looking for someone?’ I hesitate. ‘Cameron Stewart? I think he was here last night?’
The man appears taken aback and regards me as if I’ve asked something absurd, something mildly offensive. ‘I’m afraid I can’t possibly give out guest information to all-and-sundry.’ His patronising tone spreads my skin with a pink flush.
‘It’s… it’s quite important? You see, he helped me. With my son? He ran away. Cameron… Mr Stewart, well, he brought him home to me. I want to thank him.’
The man looks sceptical and I bite back an overwhelming urge to shout at him. He bends and rummages in a drawer beside him, then slides a pencil and a piece of paper across his desk with a single finger.
‘I suggest you leave him a note.’
‘So he’s here?’
The man is momentarily lost as he realises he’s inadvertently broken his confidentiality rule. My tummy fizzes with nerves. Cam slept here. He hasn’t left yet.
The man smiles primly. ‘Leave a note with your phone number. If he wants to see you, I’m sure he’ll—’
‘Hannah.’
I turn and there he is, standing not far from me on the other side of the entrance hall. He is wearing the same clothes as last night. They seem more crumpled, as if he has slept in them.
‘Why are you here?’
I can only shrug helplessly, the words I was unable to prepare even more elusive, it seems.
After a moment or two he says, ‘Do you want to get a coffee?’
‘Yes please,’ I say quietly.
‘Can she have a coffee?’ he asks the man behind the reception. ‘I’ll pay for it.’
‘Sure,’ he says, with a pithy smile, before returning to his newspaper. ‘But no breakfast. The breakfast is for my paying guests only.’
There’s a lobby off to the side, with three musty-smelling purple sofas, a mismatch of armchairs set around some low tables, and a long trestle at the back which holds a couple of hot water urns, a basket of miniature cereal boxes, a jug of milk, and a glass bowl of green apples and over-ripe bananas. A group of three girls chat animatedly as they lean over an Ordnance Survey map. They are wearing ethnic-style clothes – loose trousers, coloured knits, tasselled scarves – and one has a large metal circle which forms a porthole through her earlobe. They briefly quieten when we walk in, but on finding us of little interest, return to their route planning.
Cam makes a cup of coffee and tips three sachets of sugar into it. My heart aches when I watch him. It’s like we’ve travelled back in time. I hear a faraway me remarking on his sugar habit. It’s disconcerting to see this behaviour unchanged, but the essence of him so different. His bright eyes dulled, young skin craggy and lined, his vigour replaced by a battered weariness. So familiar and yet a stranger with the years passed. I don’t know him anymore. The Cam Stewart I knew exists only in my head. The sugar is a red herring.
Cam stirs his coffee.
‘Is he OK?’ He watches the rotating spoon.
‘Who? Alex?’
Cam nods.
‘Yes. He has to talk to the police later. Nathan says they want to talk to you too. I’m sorry.’ I hesitate. ‘I’m sorry he came to you.’
He doesn’t react but continues to stir his coffee in slow, rhythmic circles.
‘Look, Cam, I don’t know where to start. I—’
The sound of a mobile phone interrupts me. It takes a few seconds for me to realise the noise and vibrations are coming from my bag. I try to ignore it, willing whoever it is to ring off and leave us in peace, but then I think of Alex. What if it’s his school and something’s wrong? What if he’s run off again? Or got angry or upset and needs me?
‘Sorry,’ I mumble, as I scramble to find the phone.
I accept the call without registering the number. ‘Hello?’
‘Mrs Cardew?’
‘Yes? Is it Alex?’
‘Alex? No. No, this is Heamoor. I’m calling about your mother.’
‘Mum?’
There’s a brief but heavy pause as the woman on the other end of the line takes a breath. ‘I’m afraid it’s bad news. She had a stroke in the night—’
Blind panic takes hold of me.
‘—we’ve called an ambulance to take her to Truro. It should be here soon.’
‘I’m on my way.’ My hands are shaking so much I can hardly switch off the call. ‘I have to go,’ I say to Cam. ‘I’m sorry.’ I push the chair back from the table and grab my bag as I run out of the room towards the door.
‘Hannah?’ Cam calls as he follows me.
‘Sorry. It’s Mum…’ I fight my tears.
‘Do y
ou need me to drive you somewhere?’
‘There’s a bus. I’m fine. I’m sorry… I’m… I’m sorry.’
He follows me out of the hostel and grabs my arm to stop me. ‘Let me drive you.’
His face blurs and I draw my sleeve across my eyes. I have no idea what time the buses run. Perhaps I should walk. How far is it to the bus stop from here? Half an hour? Less? More? I need to get to her.
I stare at him.
He nods earnestly. ‘It’s no problem to drive you.’
‘OK,’ I say after a hesitation. ‘Yes. Thanks. She’s… up at Heamoor.’
I’m not sure if it’s anxiety to do with Mum or if it’s being back in his car again, but as I clip my seatbelt I’m overwhelmed with nausea. I pull on my sleeve to try and calm myself. The car is full of rubbish and bits are held together with duct tape. There’s a rip in his seat out of which spews yellow foam and a cloying smell of junk food hangs in the air. Nathan’s car – a silver BMW – smells brand new even though he’s had it three years. He watched a YouTube video on how to preserve the smell – compressed air to clean the vents, an air freshener called ‘New Car’, and a full weekly valet.
When we get near to the care home I point out directions in monosyllables and gestures. He turns into the car park and as soon as he draws to a halt, I throw open the door and rush up the steps and into the reception. The lady on the desk is regretful when she informs me there’s been a hold-up with the ambulance, as if its her fault, which of course it’s not.
‘I’m sure it won’t be long,’ she says and smiles. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
My voice cracks when I say no and thank her. When I get to Mum’s room, I find Patricia is with her. The concern on the kind woman’s face intensifies my fear and when I get close to Mum’s bed, my stomach contracts violently. The right side of poor Mum’s face has dropped as if the strings holding it up have been sliced through. One eye is closed and peaceful, the other droops open to display the yellow-tinged white, shot through with spidery-red capillaries.
‘God. Please. Please don’t leave me, Dama.’
‘Hannah.’ Patricia’s voice is soothing like ointment. She reaches for my hand but I snatch it away. I don’t want sympathy. I don’t deserve anybody’s sympathy. ‘She’s stable for the time being. When the paramedics get here they’ll transfer her to Treliske.’
‘Where are they?’ I whisper. ‘Why aren’t they here?’
‘I’ll go and check. If they’re not here I’ll call and get an update.’
When she leaves the room, I lean forward and rest my chin on the bed beside Mum, and take her soft hand in mine. ‘Oh, Dama,’ I whisper as the warmth of her seeps into me. ‘Please be OK. I need to talk to you. He’s back. Cam. And, Christ, everything’s a mess.’
Gwenna Whitehead, my mother, with her strong Cornish accent and wolf-grey eyes had always had a soft spot for Cam Stewart. As I sit and stroke her hand, I recall us side by side at the kitchen sink, Mum washing, me drying, when a smile cut her face in two.
‘So tell me then, melder.’
‘Tell you what?’
‘About this new man of yours.’
I laughed.
‘A looker?’
‘Gorgeous.’
Mum handed me the last plate to dry then dropped her hand into the sudsy water to pull the plug. The drain gurgled.
‘He’s dark – like a gypsy – eyes almost black and hair so thick there’s enough for two.’
‘Hair’s important. I love to stroke your dad’s hair.’
‘Oh, God, Dama!’ I said, batting her gently. ‘Stop. I do not need to hear stuff like that.’
She leant back against the sink and raised her eyebrows. ‘Go on then. Him with the nice thick hair and dark eyes. What else?’
‘He’s a fisherman. On the trawlers. So he’s brave and strong.’
‘Of course.’ She tapped the tip of my nose and beamed. ‘And he’s making my melder sparkle just how she should.’
When I told her I’d split with him to marry Nathan Cardew, my voice tight and quiet in the aftermath of that night, her face had darkened. ‘Ah, melder, but how can you be marrying a man you’ve just met? Do you love him? You have to love him. Rag kerenza. That’s what your gran used to say. Rag kerenza. Marry for love. Marriage lasts a long time. Without love you’ll not make it.’
‘Nathan is a good man.’
But Mum shook her head like a dog shaking off river water.
‘Don’t look at me like that. Nathan is a good man and I love him. I do.’
A knock at the door startles me. ‘Yes?’
Cam’s voice comes through the laminate. ‘Hannah?’
I tiptoe to the door. My hand hovers above the handle and I chew on my lip. I glance back at Mum, lying there, ravaged by the stroke, in a tiny institutional room in need of a repaint. I don’t want him to see her like this.
Another knock.
My whole body trembles as I open the door.
We face each other either side of the threshold, but neither of us moves. The air between us so thick with hateful memories it’s an impassable barrier. Seeing him here, in my mother’s room, is difficult. The memories of her, the ones I hold close, when she was fit and well and laughing heartily, belong to a time when this man was my future.
‘Can I see her?’
I hesitate, but then step to one side. He sits tentatively down in the chair beside the bed. ‘Hello, Gwenna.’ His gentleness stabs my heart. ‘She looks peaceful.’
I stare down at the lopsided face of my mother, her breathing regular and quiet, hands relaxed and graceful like a ballerina. I know he’s saying this to comfort me, but I don’t want her peaceful. I want her awake and fighting and ordering death to leave her the fuck alone.
Cam looks up at me then. ‘Hannah?’
‘Yes?’
‘Is he mine? Is Alex my son?’
The question kicks the breath from me. I have a flash of us on the boat, beneath the tarpaulin, chilled faces, warm bodies pressed together. The yearning I’d felt for him. All I’d wanted was to have him inside me.
‘No.’
‘Are you sure, because the dates—’
The pain in him is raw.
‘I’m sure. I got my period while you were at sea. That was after we…’
Cam looks back at my mother. ‘I knew he was your son before he even opened his mouth. He looks so like you, but, well… his hair. It’s… it’s dark.’
Dark like mine, he wants to say.
A knock on the door cuts through the silence which follows. Patricia bustles into the room and I clear my throat, suddenly self-conscious, as if interrupted in a compromising situation. Two paramedics follow. Their radio crackles with static. They lift Mum on to the gurney they’ve wheeled in, faces serious as they check her and hook her up to wires and monitors.
Mum appears too slight in their busy hands and I bite my tongue to stop myself telling them to be careful with her. One of them, a man with sandy hair and two days’ worth of stubble, explains what will happen to her when she gets to Treliske as he wraps a blood pressure gauge around her arm. The other administers a drip, finding one of her old, blue veins and sliding the needle expertly into it. A flash of blood hits the saline like a puff of red smoke.
‘Do you need someone to come with you?’ asks Patricia, resting a kind hand on my shoulder and rubbing it lightly.
‘I’ll follow the ambulance,’ Cam says, before I can answer. ‘I’ll be there if you need me.’
I’m about to protest and tell him he’s done enough already, but then I think about the hospital and what might unfold there. ‘Thank you,’ I whisper. ‘That’s kind of you.’
‘By the way, love,’ says Patricia. ‘You didn’t happen to take the little glass bird last time you were up? It’s just she noticed it was gone from the windowsill.’
‘Oh,’ I reply. ‘Yes. I didn’t think she’d miss it.’
‘That’s a relief. She was ever so worried.
She talks to it, you know.’ Patricia smiles warmly. ‘She thought it might have flown away.’
My stomach seizes up as I imagine Mum wondering where the little bird had gone. Was that why she had the stroke? Because the bird wasn’t there to watch over her?
As I watch them load her into the ambulance. I’m struck with a deep sense of foreboding, remembering the time I stood and watched them put my father into the ambulance. He didn’t come out alive. His heart gave out on the journey to the hospital. The attack was unexpected. He was a fit man who swam every day off the beach at Wherrytown. He was happy and relaxed and looked young for his years, but one Wednesday afternoon, he got up from his chair to make a pot of tea, and never made it to the kitchen. Part of Mum died with him too. He was her one and only love, and had been since the day they met aged fourteen.
Cam is waiting on the tarmac when the paramedics open the ambulance doors. ‘Do you want me to come in with you?’ he asks.
‘No. I dont think so.’
‘I’ll wait here. Drive you back.’
‘Don’t you have to get home? To work?’
‘I said I’d be back on Monday. It’s only packing in a warehouse.’
I hestitate, but then imagine calling Nathan and having to put up with him huffing and puffing about coming to get me. I nod. ‘Yes, OK. That would be great, thanks.’
Mum is stable, they say, but they are keeping her in for observation. Machines beep and whirr. A nurse monitors various charts. I follow her out when she leaves the room and talk to her in the corridor.
‘I have to get back. My son is off school. He’s sick.’ I can’t look her in the eye. ‘Will you call me if there’s any change?’
‘Of course. Try not to worry. She’s a tough old bird, I can tell.’
My lie sits heavily. There’s nothing I need to leave for. I could stay at the hospital all day. Alex and Nathan are self-sufficient. Even Cass would be fine. She sleeps when I’m not there; she’s not a young dog anymore.
But I want to go back to Cam.
He is leaning against his car smoking a cigarette. When he catches sight of me he raises his hand and as I approach, he retrieves his cigarettes from his jacket pocket. ‘Still smoking?’
The Storm Page 14