Chapter 2 #3
I was, I vaguely remember, when I was very little.
But then Liam Byrne and his family moved to St Tilda – all the way from Ireland, which seemed very exotic.
Mr Byrne had relocated for work and brought his wild tribe of kids and his force-of-nature wife with him.
Liam became my best friend, and they became my second family.
I feel a familiar twinge of deeply rooted pain, and shut down that train of thought before it crushes me.
Even thinking about Liam, thinking about those times, hurts me so much that I have mastered the art of closing it off.
If Liam crosses my mind, I immediately chase him away.
It’s too hard, too mixed up with my parents splitting up, too connected to being forced to leave.
‘Not really,’ I reply simply. ‘I had friends. We were like a pack of feral dogs, especially when we got older. We roamed the beaches and the bays, did stupid things, snuck booze from the inn, pretended we liked smoking even though we all secretly hated it… those last few summers were so special. I’d help my parents out in the inn, usually at breakfast. Then the day would be mine, and Cornwall was my playground.
Campfires, swimming in the ocean, picnics on the cliff tops…
Every day seemed to last forever. I still remember the smells, you know?
The suncream, the cut grass, the wildflower meadows.
The scent of sea salt drying into my hair. ’
Even thinking about it, I can almost hear the gulls and the oystercatchers calling, feel the sun on my skin. Taste the freedom.
‘It sounds amazing,’ Tyler replies, smiling gently, his hand still on mine. ‘I wish I could have known teenaged Ellie.’
‘No, you don’t – she was trouble! And she was also pretty sad by the time she left. I didn’t want to go. I had other plans.’
I clung on desperately, trying every trick in the book to get my own way. I begged my dad to fight for me, and told my mum she’d have to knock me unconscious to make me go. Tears, emotional blackmail, all-out anger – I threw the lot at them, and none of it worked.
I’d planned on going to university in Bristol, and being close enough to home that I could still visit.
I loved it there, and I loved my friends.
I loved Liam, even though things had turned sour between us.
I wanted to sort that out, to go back to the way we’d been since we were seven years old, but I never got the chance.
Before I was mature enough to find my way back to our friendship, I was thousands of miles away from him, in a strange land.
‘But you liked it here in the US, didn’t you? Once you settled in?’
‘I did, but that took a long time. I was sixteen, and I was not an easy sixteen. I was messed up and angry, and I never really came to terms with what had happened. With hindsight, as an adult, I knew my parents’ marriage was over, but it took her meeting Ethan to force a change.
He was doing a walk around the coast and stayed at the inn.
Their eyes met over a crowded breakfast room, and the rest was history – a history I had no part in shaping.
I was furious and confused, and I took it out on my mum, on Ethan, on anyone who tried to get close to me.
Plus we moved around – California, Chicago, Atlanta. I was always the new girl.’
Tyler is an astute guy, and I can practically see him putting two and two together.
The way my childhood so abruptly ended, the way I was dramatically pulled out of a life I loved.
Moving from place to place, starting over, not trusting the process.
Never feeling at home. It doesn’t take a psychology degree to join the dots – maybe I can’t commit because I still don’t trust the process.
And maybe I’ve never quite felt at home since I was that earlier incarnation of myself.
I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to analyse myself or my complicated relationship with my dad. Luckily, I’m saved by the bell. My phone rings, and I see my mum’s name on the screen. I pick it up and answer, biting my lip as I hear her voice.
‘So, please don’t over-react, sweetheart, but it seems that your father had a small stroke.
He was in hospital for a few days and has been home since Monday.
Doris tells me it isn’t anything to panic about, and that he made her promise not to mention it.
She also added that he is being stubborn and pretending nothing has happened.
They’re all trying to chip in and help, but you know how he can be – too proud to know when he should let his upper lip be a little less stiff. ’
That’s almost exactly what he said earlier – about his stiff upper lip getting in the way. My heart melts at the thought of him sitting there, alone in his attic room, fighting the sadness that I know has always haunted him.
‘A stroke?’ I echo, my worst fears confirmed.
I talk to my mum for a few more minutes, and Ethan comes on the line with a few facts.
I can tell he is using his very best ‘keep calm and carry on’ doctor voice, trying to stop me going off at the deep end by stressing that strokes are not necessarily the disaster our minds first conjure up.
I am grateful to him, but I also feel dangerously close to that deep end.
By the end of the phone call, Tyler has clearly picked up on what’s happened. He pays the bill and wraps my coat around my shoulders as we stand to leave. He drops a gentle kiss on my head and says: ‘What do you want to do?’
‘I think,’ I say, feeling my way through it, ‘that I need to go home. I need to go and help my dad.’