CHAPTER 23
Nicholas
Cornwall
Something had happened to Nicholas in Venice . . .
He returned home to the cottage at Godrevy, conscious of a strange dissatisfaction.
It was something to do with that bridge walk.
As he’d told Joanna Shepherd, he wasn’t given to flights of the imagination.
However . . . He couldn’t explain it, but he knew what he’d seen.
It had touched him, moved him in a way that made him conscious of something missing in his life.
Not Rachel, or Celie, though they were missing too.
This was more a sense of something he’d let go. A part of himself.
The next day he put on a warm fleece and walked to the headland, looked out at the ocean, watched the wind whipping up the waves in the thick, navy sea. In the distance, the lighthouse stood white and sturdy on Godrevy Island, silently watching. Soon, he would be in Cotillo, he thought. And then?
It was one of those late October days when the clouds moved so fast that it was raining one moment, bright sunshine the next – which rather reflected Nicholas’s mood.
The surfers were there too; they came in all weathers and all seasons; autumn and winter often brought the best waves.
He realised they were holding a surfing competition.
On the headland, vans and campers stood in the car park, tents and canopies had been erected, people clustered around the cliff edge using cameras and binoculars to monitor progress.
Flags were flying: a red pennant and the black and white Cornish cross.
Nicholas took the path that skirted the car park and led over the dusty boardwalk to the cliff. An Australian commentator cut into the Jack Johnson track that was playing over the loudspeakers, calling for the next surfers to get ready. It took Nicholas way back.
He’d started surfing when he was seven, using a board and wetsuit passed down to him by Jimmy Prisk next door.
After that, he did odd jobs for the fishermen whenever he could and saved up enough money to buy his own gear when he was twelve.
When his father wanted him to go out fishing, Nicholas only wanted to surf.
It had got him into a whole load of trouble.
The surfers in their wetsuits were as sleek as seals.
He watched them. Three figures, three boards; he could almost feel the strenuous slog as they made their way back to catch the next set, almost feel their excitement as they waited, assessing each wave’s strength and height.
He too could almost experience that plunge into the icy water, which seemed like a leap of faith.
Then came the best bit, the heady balancing act, as they controlled the board and rode the top of the wave.
Before the surge of power as another wave crashed and the tides joined forces to carry the surfer in.
He watched the surfers with a practised eye. He could spot who would lose balance, who looked confident and sure. A young boy was lying in the damp grass, watching, drinking it in. He wanted it. And if you wanted it that much . . .
Nicholas turned around abruptly. Enough. He made his way back along the boardwalk, over the towans, past the car park and down to the golden beach. In the distance across the bay, the yellow sunlight reflected and glittered on the houses in St Ives.
He had smoked his first cigarette here at fourteen, drunk his first beer, had his first snog with Martha Prisk behind a grey granite stack.
Nicholas grinned. He pulled off his trainers and socks, stuffed his socks in his pocket and looped the laces of his trainers round his thumbs.
He’d always loved the feel of sand on his bare feet, and some things at least had never changed.
The dark rocks rose dramatically from the pale sand peppered with silver and black granite dust.
Nicholas loped over to the sheer cliff face, ran his fingers across the stone.
This was a harsh landscape. But it was his landscape.
It was drawn into him, it was part of his foundations; he could no more escape it than get Rachel back.
Not that he wanted Rachel back. Rachel belonged in Rome or in leafy Surrey.
Leafy Surrey had made Nicholas feel claustrophobic – there were just too many trees.
And Nicholas belonged here. He should never have left.
He had stopped surfing. Rachel didn’t like it. She didn’t think it was responsible behaviour – for a married man, a father. ‘It’s dangerous, Nicholas,’ she said. ‘Now that we have Celie . . .’
He’d remonstrated – after all, he’d been doing it for years; he didn’t take any risks.
But she’d worn him down with her particular brand of emotional blackmail.
Why did she mind so much? He’d never understood.
Perhaps it didn’t fit into the image she’d built of him – the suits and ties, the neatly clipped hair; the businessman, rather than the son of a fisherman from Priest’s Cove.
Or perhaps she was jealous that there was a part of him she couldn’t control?
Whatever, when they were staying at their holiday cottage in Godrevy, Rachel would take out her book on the beach and Nicholas would play with Celie on the sand or take her into the sea to paddle.
Not that he didn’t want to do those things .
. . And when you became a parent, you couldn’t do exactly what you’d done before.
He knew all that. But . . . he also knew damn well that he should have been stronger with Rachel.
When exactly had compromise come to mean sacrifice?
Like his experience in Venice, this made him think.
The sun shone onto the faces of the granite rocks, their bulk creating sharp shadows on the sand at his feet. Once more he looked out to sea. The waves were coming in, swift, insistent, loud. It felt as if they were inside his head.
Was it too late? He was only in his mid-forties, for God’s sake, he still kept himself fit enough.
She – Joanna Shepherd – had written about a certain moment, a pause in time, and he had responded to that.
God knows why. But sometimes rather than question, it was better to accept, to do, to grasp the moment.
He gazed over towards the lighthouse at Godrevy. What had she made of his message? He had no idea why he’d emailed her, only obeyed the strong compulsion to do so. He supposed, though, it was what she’d made him see. Would she write back? He rather hoped so.
Nicholas pulled on his shoes and sprinted back along the sand.
He took the steps two at a time. His surfboard would still be at the cottage somewhere – he’d never been able to throw it away.
And he still had his winter wetsuit stored in the garage – if it hadn’t rotted by now.
More to the point, he was going to Fuerteventura and there would be waves.
He had waited so long. And for what? But it was a part of him that he could get back. And if he could get that back, then how much else of the old Nicholas could he get back? At any rate, he was determined to try.